
Cupcake Ingredients:
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• Food coloring
Makes: 12 Cupcakes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Cupcake Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with paper liners.
- While the oven is heating, cream together the sugar and butter in a medium bowl.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder.
- Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
- Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Note: To avoid dense cake be sure not to over work the mixture once you’ve added your flour.
- For the tie-dye effect spoon the batter into four (or more) separate bowls and add food coloring. Don’t be afraid to try color mixing! Most food coloring boxes include red, yellow, green and blue; with these primary colors you can make virtually any color you want. We chose to do green, purple, orange and pink.
- After you have created your desired colors there are two options for how to add the batter into the muffin cups.

- Option One: Layering different colored batter on top of each other and spreading them out into are distinct and unmixed layers. As the layers are cooking they droop resulting in a very cool gobstopper effect. When you bite into the cupcake it looks like there is a ball of color in the center with rings of color surrounding it.
- Option Two: Adding spoonfuls of different colors at random until the cups are ¾ of the way full. This option is less labor intensive than option one and creates a similar effect, although the colors are a little more mixed.
- Bake for about 20 minutes. Note: Keep a close eye on the cupcakes ours were brown around the edges when 20 minutes were up.
Frosting Ingredients:
• 2.5 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 tablespoons milk (or whipping cream if you have it)
• 1 drop blue food coloring (optional)
Makes: Frosting for 12 cupcakes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Frosting Directions:
- While the cupcakes are cooling start on the frosting.
- In a medium bowl use an electric mixer on low speed to mix together the sugar and butter until well blended.
- Increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes until the mixture is a creamy consistency.
- Add the vanilla and milk (or cream) then continue to beat on medium speed a minute longer. Note: Add more milk as needed to reach a fluffy spreadable consistency.
- Helpful Tip: Did you know blue food coloring can help cut the off-white color vanilla extract often gives your frosting? For ultra white frosting, just mix it in half a drop (or more as needed) until the yellowish tinge is gone.