Rainbow Cupcakes and Butter Cream Frosting

 A certain little boy I know turns 4 today...I'm really not sure how that happened! But I wanted to send in some cupcakes to school to celebrate. I saw the idea for rainbow cupcakes a while ago and then this past week they were posted again on another blog so I had to try them out.(Although he did want chocolate, but I felt bad that a little girl in his class doesn't like chocolate, so I convinced him of rainbow!)

Rainbow Cupcakes-cake recipe shared from Hallee the Homemaker
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

*This made around 21 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350, prepare muffin tins with oil or cupcake liners.

Sift together sugar, salt, flour, and baking powder. Mix together milk and vanilla. Add in half the milk/vanilla and oil to flour mixture. Beat on medium for 2 mins. Add in the rest of the milk and eggs, beat for another 2 mins on med.

Divide batter into 4-6 bowls(depending on how many colors you want to do). Tint dough with food coloring to desired color. Have birthday boy help with this! Little fingers provide BRILLIANT colors! Stir well. Divide amongst cupcake pan(s). Starting with one color in the bottom, followed by each color after to form layers.

Place in oven for 15-18 mins until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

**These came out so pretty and were fun to make especially with little helpers!















Butter Cream Frosting-shared from Hallee the Homemaker

I LOVE frosting...well on cake! I like a really really good one too, not the whipped kind(which we found out the hard way Q can't have! Oops!)  Hallee came through with this recipe and it rivals the bakery in town, it's definitely a keeper!

1/2 cup butter. softened,
1/2 shortening
2 lbs powdered sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp vanilla
milk

Beat butter and shortening until fluffy(about 2 mins on a stand mixer). Add in the sugar, cream of tartar, and vanilla. On low gently beat the sugar until all the creamed mixture is combined. Slowly add 1 tbsp of milk to mixture until desired consistency is achieved. Once this is done, put mixer on high and beat for 3-4 mins until light and fluffy!

**This is my absolute favorite frosting recipe and I use it all the time whenever a cake needs to be made!