Cavalcade of Cupcakes: Second Stop, Rainbow Road

Welcome one and all to the second stop of the 2010 Cavalcade of Cupcakes! After yesterday’s pucker-inducing Triple Lemon Heaven cupcake stop, today’s needed to be even more awe-inducing. They needed to be even more special because they were for a very special person…

Today’s stop brings us to the cupcakes made in honor of a very special little girl. Our flower girl and my best friend Lizz’s daughter Skylar turned 5 years old on June 1, and her birthday party is tomorrow. Lizz and I are always talking about fun stuff to do with or for Skylar since she’s pretty much the coolest 5-year old we know. About a year ago, we saw a picture of a cake that we talked about making for Skylar’s next birthday.

Now, I’m kind of cupcake obsessed, so I volunteered to make cupcakes for her birthday party. Lizz happily humored me and allowed me to make the cupcakes.

We’re going to go backwards for this one… first, the recipe, found through the Taste of Home Community and modified it for cupcakes, though the cooking times stayed the same:

The Best White Cake Ever

Ingredients

* 1 cup whole milk at cool room temperature

* 6 large egg whites at cool room temperature

* 1 ½ cups sugar

* 4 tsp. baking powder

* ¾ tsp. salt

* 2 tsp. vanilla extract

* 2 1/3 cups cake flour

* 12 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened but still firm

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and adjust a rack to the center position. Grease two 9-inch cake pans with softened butter or Crisco and cover the bottom of each pan with a circle of parchment paper. In a medium bowl stir together the milk, egg whites, and vanilla with a fork.

2. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the butter and ¼ of the milk mixture and mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened, about 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and mix until the batter comes together, about 30 seconds. Increase the speed to medium high and mix for 2 minutes stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Add the remaining milk/egg white mixture to the batter in three batches mixing for about 20 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat on medium high until batter is homogeneous and light, about 30 seconds longer.

3. Scoop the batter into lined cupcake tins, filling about 3/4 full. Bake 23-25 minutes until lightly browned and springy.

4. Remove the pans from the oven and allow to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes to cooling racks, and allow to fully cool before decorating.

The finished product, topped with a simple Italian meringue buttercream icing made with shortening to make it shelf-stable:

Now, you can sort of see there are a few things I left out.

First, these little jars became my friends.

And, I didn’t exactly “scoop the batter” into cupcake tins. First, I divided it into 6 separate bowls and dyed each bowl a different color. Then, I layered the batter one color at a time into the cupcake tins making a sort of bullseye pattern.

When I say I made a lot of cupcakes (which I did) I mean I made a lot of cupcakes. Not quite as many as I made yesterday with Wendy, but still… 60 is a lot of cupcakes!

There are 2 boxes like that.

The best part? The gratuitous “cut in half” shot of the beautiful rainbowiness (that’s not a word, but I’m going with it).

The kids will be decorating these with sprinkles, jelly beans, candy corn, and other lovely goodies at the party tomorrow, and Ill be sure to post a picture of Skylar with her birthday cupcakes… I’m telling you though, if you know anyone who may enjoy some fun cake, MAKE THESE!! They’re fun, easy, and end up looking tie dyed and super fun. (Yes, I said super fun.)

Please come back SUNDAY for the third and final stop on our Cavalcade of Cupcakes. We’ll take a turn away from the sugar and a bit more towards the healthy side of things.

Tagged as: Baking, cupcake, cupcakes, cute, cute food, dessert, friends, fun