Easy Rainbow Cupcakes

So this week marks my baby girl’s 4th birthday.  Somehow I managed to escape yet another Princess party (2 little divas = about 8 birthdays with variations on Princess themes = please, please no more Princess parties) and we are doing a Cowgirl party this year.  (Yeah!)

There was quite a bit of back and forth on whether Cowgirl was going to be the theme or a rainbow party.  Fortunately Cowgirl won out because I have been having a lot of fun with planning this party.

As a compromise I decided to surprise my little girl with Rainbow cupcakes for her class party.  That way she gets a little of both for her birthday.

I am not a professional baker by any means but I found these cupcakes really easy to put together and they are so cute in person!

They are bright and cheerful and are perfect for a birthday!

The first thing is you need to track down this Airheads Xtremes Rainbow candy.

This can be found in the candy section of most stores- I have found them at Joann’s Crafts and at Target in the Dollar Spot.

I used a funfetti cupcake mix for the cupcakes and baked them in plain white liners.

Next I whipped up this buttercream frosting recipe.

Once the buttercream was made, I set aside about 1/4 of the frosting in a small bowl.  To my mixer, I added a few drops of food coloring to get the blue color for the sky.

Next I simply frosted the cupcakes with the blue frosting.  I used a piping bag and cut the tip about an inch up and swirled it on.  I tried to keep the swirls somewhat flat so there would be room for the rainbow.

After the blue swirls were piped on top, I made little dallops on the sides to look like clouds with the white frosting.  I just placed the white frosting in a Ziploc bag and trimmed the end off to create a piping bag.

I cut the Airheads into two pieces per strip- the size of the strips will vary according to how big your cupcakes are.

I gently place one end of the Airhead into each cloud.  The frosting should be nice and thick so I didn’t have any trouble with it staying in place.  I did put the cupcakes in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes just to be sure the frosting would set.

If you make these on an especially warm day you might keep them in the fridge until ready to serve.

Oh and one last step, I popped them into little snack cup cupcake liners.  Any color liner would be fantastic- I was actually thinking green would be really pretty but alas pink was what I had on hand.

Here are a few things that might help if you want to make these cupcakes:

Wilton Icing Colors // Candy Cups // Muffin Tin // Cupcake Carrier 

Update:  We made these again for my 8 year old’s class party- so cute right?

And here are a few other recipes you might enjoy:

Perfect Fresh Squeezed lemonade 

Teddy Bear Racecars 

Rainbow Fruit Cups