Rainbow cupcakes are perfect for St. Patrick’s Day, birthday parties, or any time you want to make a dessert that will make someone smile. These are vanilla funfetti-style cupcakes topped with fluffy blue buttercream and candy rainbows. What’s not to love? While you could tint the cupcake batter in rainbow colors so that the inside matches the outside, I like the simplicity of making plain vanilla cupcakes with added rainbow sprinkles instead. You don’t need all day to make these fancy (but easy!) rainbow cupcakes. In fact, they will be ready to eat in less than an hour.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients in Rainbow Cupcakes
Here’s what you need to make these fun rainbow cupcakes! Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Unsalted Butter: Let the butter soften at room temperature before you start baking. Granulated Sugar: To make these cupcakes perfectly sweet.Eggs: Two large eggs, also at room temperature go into this recipe. Vanilla Extract: Buy pure vanilla extract, never the imitation stuff. This is the only flavoring of the cupcake, so you want it to be good. Yogurt: Adding yogurt to cake and cupcake recipes makes them dense and moist, like a bakery-style cupcake. Flour, baking soda, and salt: these are the dry ingredients, common to most cupcake recipes, and probably already in your pantry. Sprinkles: These cupcakes are extra fun because we’ll add sprinkles to the batter to create a funfetti cupcake effect! Choose jimmies-style sprinkles rather than nonpareils so that the colors don’t bleed into the white cakes. Buttercream Frosting: I’ll show you how to make an easy American buttercream with softened butter, powdered sugar, cream, vanilla extract, and blue food coloring. Rainbow Candy Strips: Sour rainbow candy strips from Airheads are what you see on my rainbow cupcakes. There are other similar brands, so choose whichever you find at the store. Cut the strips in half. You’ll need one piece for each cupcake.
How to Make Rainbow Cupcakes
Vanilla Rainbow Cupcakes with fluffy buttercream frosting and candy rainbows are so easy to make from scratch!
Recipe Tips
Don’t overfill. Filling the cupcake liners only halfway, and definitely no more than ⅔ of the way is key to making sure that cupcakes don’t overflow. They aren’t as cute if they look like mushrooms! Measure Correctly: I have some tricks for making sure you’re measuring your ingredients correctly! When baking, it’s important to accurately measure everything to get the best results in the end. Try Different Flavors: You can decorate any flavor of cupcake to create these Rainbow Cupcakes. Try my chocolate cupcake recipe or any other cupcake recipe that you love. Cool Cupcakes Completely: Don’t try to add buttercream to cupcakes that are still warm. It will just melt and fall right off! No Decorating Tips? I’m showing you exactly how to make these cupcakes using piping bags and tips, but if you’d rather, you can still make beautiful rainbow cupcakes by spreading the blue frosting with a knife or spatula and adding the clouds using a ziplock bag with the corner cut off.
Storing Tips
Once decorated, you can store your rainbow cupcakes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. I prefer to add the rainbow candy shortly before serving though. This way it’s fresh and soft. It could dry out otherwise. Unfrosted cupcakes can be frozen, wrapped individually, for up to 3 months.
What To Serve With
These fun cupcakes will be a welcome dessert for any occasion, but rainbows remind me of leprechauns, and that reminds me of the delicious meal that we enjoy on St. Patrick’s Day! Corned Beef and Cabbage: My recipe for Instant Pot Corned Beef is the easiest way to make a flavorful Irish brisket roast with all of the fixings, including cabbage, carrots, and potatoes! Or, try this recipe for Irish Lamb Stew. It’s ready in an hour and is a total comfort food. Serve it over Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes with greens). Looking for green treats for St. Patrick’s Day? Make Green Tea Waffles for breakfast, or a sweet Shamrock Shake for dessert! Whether you’re making Rainbow cupcakes for a birthday party, St. Patrick’s Day, or another festive occasion, everyone is going to love them! Be sure to pin the recipe so others can try it too! © Little Sunny Kitchen
