Rainbow Cupcakes

These rainbow cupcakes are easy to make with a cake mix, then layered with vibrant colors and finished with fluffy vanilla buttercream. They’re a cheerful dessert for any occasion!

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Rainbow Cupcakes with Fluffy Vanilla Frosting

These rainbow cupcakes are easy to make with a cake mix and topped with a fluffy swirl of vanilla frosting. While I do love baking vanilla cupcakes from scratch when I have the time, I’m also a big fan of recipes like cake mix vanilla cupcakes when I want something quick, colorful, and still delicious.

Bright and fun, these cupcakes are perfect for birthdays, parties, or any cheerful celebration. They also make a cute treat for St. Patrick’s Day when served alongside something festive like rainbow jello!

Recipe Ingredients

• White cake mix: Store bought white cake mix makes this easy although you can use homemade vanilla cake mix, too.
• Vanilla pudding mix: Not instant pudding use the cook and serve kind for best results.
• Eggs: You will need four large eggs that are at room temperature.
• Oil: I used canola oil but vegetable oil works too.
• Hot water: Adds moisture, milk can be used for a richer taste.
• Sour cream: Keeps these rainbow cupcakes super moist!
• Buttercream frosting: I prefer my buttercream frosting for best taste.

How to Make Rainbow Cupcakes

1. Prepare. Preheat oven to 325°F and line cupcake pan with liners. Set aside.
2. Mix batter. Add cake mix and dry pudding mix to a large bowl and stir until combined. Then mix in eggs, canola oil and water and stir. Finally, mix in sour cream.
3. Color the batter. Separate batter into 5 bowls, then add different colors of food coloring to each. Stir each bowl until smooth.
4. Fill cupcake liners. Add one spoonful (about 1 Tablespoon) of each color to cupcake liners and fill about 3/4 of the way.
5. Bake in oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cooling rack. Frost once cooled. Enjoy!

Assembling Cupcakes

Although these rainbow cupcakes are quite festive without any decorations, the fun comes in assembling them how you like!

• Frosting: I love vanilla buttercream but you could even make rainbow buttercream for even more pizzazz or make this this cloud-like marshmallow frosting.
• Sprinkles: We love to use rainbow sprinkles! The colorful sprinkles are a fun contrast on top of the white buttercream frosting.
• Edible glitter: Using edible glitter adds such a fun touch and looks a little more fancy.
• Rainbow candy. Cut rainbow strip candy, such as Airheads extreme into smaller strips to make a rainbow on top of the cupcake.
• Cupcake toppers: Cupcake toppers are perfect to add for a celebration such as a birthday or holiday party. A unicorn or rainbow cupcake topper would be fun.

Recipe Tips

• Gel food coloring. For vibrant colors in these rainbow cupcakes, use gel food coloring to color batter instead of traditional food coloring.
• Color variation. Play around with the cupcake batter colors and only use 2 or 3 of your favorites instead of 5!
• Prevent colors from running together: Use seperate bowls to make the colored layers then once the batter is added to the muffin tin, try not to touch it! Use a piping bag for even more precise rainbow cake batter placement.
• Frost like a pro. Check out this easy tutorial that gives step-by-step instructions on how to frost the perfect cupcake. You’ll become a pro cupcake decorator in no time!
• Flavoring rainbow cupcakes. I didn’t add additional flavoring but you could add lemon, coconut, clear vanilla or almond to the base layers for variety in each bite. Use fruity flavoring for a Fruit Loop taste!