GabesBabyMomma: Tie-Dye Funky Birthday Cupcakes

Who doesn't love birthday parties, especially backyard birthday parties? They are my favorite kind of parties. To me, homemade cakes go hand in hand with backyard birthday parties, especially when they are homemade cupcakes.

Last month, my good friend and guardian angel on earth, Marina, fell in love with the cake I made for my daughter's 2nd birthday party. She was excited to see it had a rainbow of colors inside when you cut into it. She asked me to make cupcakes for her grandson's, AJ, birthday party in August. My kind of request. I love making birthday cakes and cupcakes for kids!

The tie-dye effect is so easy. Since I did not take step-by-step pictures, here is demo on the site I used.

I chose this method, because you could go crazier with it than your typical rainbow cake with even layers. Plus, you can scrape all your batter and just dump it in in all kinds of ways and it would look extra funky! I try to use all my batter without wasting a drop. Scrape, scrape, scrap it all in. If you are using a box, which I do for kids' parties unless there is a special request, I highly recommend Duncan Hines. It delivers a generous 5 cups of batter, unlike its other counter parts, which deliver between 3-4 cups. I also use store bought frosting when I am in a pinch. I recommend buying white. Flavor it with your favorite extract (I often use butter flavor). Then, dye it. Be sure to buy extra frosting to decorate your cupcakes. One container is usually not enough if you are going to frost your cupcakes with a pastry bag.

For AJ.'s cupcakes, I colored my frosting and added sprinkles on top for extra cupcake confetti.

It is really pretty easy. Just dump the colored batter in as you like until it is a little over the half way mark in the muffin tin. Lightly tap the pan on a hard surface a few times to break up bubbles in the batter and to even the batter out. Bake cupcakes according to directions. Then, completely cool them. Frost and decorate. Finally, they are good to go.