RAINBOW MANIA!!! :D

Hey guys!! Emily here, a little late, sorry!!!

Yep that's right, rainbow mania!

My arsenal, mixing colours, in the moulds and finally cooked!

This week I made a super simple packet cupcake mixture (Betty Crocker's Super Moist Vanilla Cupcakes). Packet cakes are a wonderful idea, they're so simple, easy and quick but most important they're really tasty!! I decided to play around with the mixture a bit and make funky rainbow cupcakes.

Before I spooned the mixture in the moulds I split it evenly into 6 bowls and coloured each of them with liquid food dye. Unfortunately the purple (that I mixed myself) wasn't a great colour but that could be solved by buying purple food die or adding more or less of red or blue. I also ran out of orange food die so it was a bit pale, but the colours were still pretty fantastic. I spooned the mixture into the moulds one colour at a time starting with pink, purple, blue, green, yellow and finally orange, a couple of the moulds (the square ones and the 2 middle heart shapes) I slightly "mixed" or marbled with a spoon creating, I think, the best rainbow effect. However, you have to be careful not to marble the colours too much or they become a murky brown colour, yuk!



Inside marble, rainbow crumb and close-up of icing.

As you can see, the moulds I used were not metal, I used silicone moulds. A set of hearts (the joint blue hearts) and some square ones. Previously my family has had some issues with the heart moulds and I had the same problems and they would not come out properly. I ended up ripping the tops off (they were slightly overfilled) and gently running a blunt knife around the edges of the bases. Not using that mound for cupcakes again. The other silicone moulds however were a fantastic success, with no need for buttering or lining they're easy to use. They are a fantastic, no-fuss, easy to clean way to bake, although I caution against using joined moulds (like my hearts).

I added the icing (supplied with the packet) and tried, with my amateur icing hand, to so some nice designs and had a try at some rosettes, most of them I just used a knife to do a nice smooth design that didn't require a steady hand. I was quite happy with the icing and it went better than I thought.

The final result was a fantastic tasting, evidently spectacular array of colour, I couldn't stop grinning everytime I ate one, feeling like a little kid again :D

The finished product, yum!!!

Happy rainbow baking!! -Emily