Rainbow Cupcakes to Celebrate the Death of DOMA

I actually made these cupcakes for my daughter's third birthday last July, but I feel like in light of today's Supreme Court decision, it makes an appropriate post! This is actually a combination of two different cupcake recipes I found on Pinterest, and I can't resist a fun looking cupcake challenge! I'll post more of those later! The original recipes are posted here and here, and you can find them below with my changes! The original recipes are much more involved, I am all about shortcuts when making something like this that is mostly ornamental, so I just used cake mix and canned frosting.


You will need:
1 box white cake mix (and whatever extra ingredients are listed on the box you bought, typically eggs and oil)

Wilton Gel Food Coloring

1 can white frosting

1 tube Wilton white icing (You will need the star tip if you don't have one)

1 package rainbow sour ribbons

6 extra bowls (or one per color you will use + 1 for the frosting)

cupcake pan

paper cupcake cups

Instructions:

• Make the cake mix according to instructions on the box
• Divide batter according to how many colors you are using.
• Use food coloring to color batter to desired intensity. Wilton brand gel colors have the brightest colors and wont thin your batter. They can be found at Walmart or Michaels (I got mine at H-E-B).
• Put a spoonful of each color in the cupcake one at a time. 
• The cupcakes won't be identical unless you are meticulous with your measuring of batter (and I'm not) so I had wildly varied cupcakes, but I thought it was fun that way, each person's cupcake was different!
• Bake them according to the package directions, until a toothpick comes out dry. Makes around 15 cupcakes.

Frosting:

• While the cupcakes are baking, empty the frosting canister into a bowl and add blue gel food coloring, mix it until it is fully incorporated.
• After you're done mixing the frosting, set it aside and get out the rainbow sour ribbons, I used Airhead brand (like these) and one package was plenty for what I made. Take out the ribbons and cut them into thirds horizontally. You might want to put them into the fridge until ready to use so they will be a bit stiffer.
• Once the cupcakes are out of the oven and cooled, you can add the blue frosting, the white icing stars and the rainbow ribbons!