This is a recipe for rainbow Cupcakes

You will need:

1 cup butter, softened

2⅓ cups sugar

5 egg whites

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temperature

Rainbow colors of Gel food coloring

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened

4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon clear vanilla

tiny pinch of salt

3 tablespoons of milk

Instructions to Bake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In your stand mixer cream the butter and sugar together until much lighter in color, like a easter-y spring yellow (2-3 minutes).

Add in the egg whites and vanilla until totally combined.

Add the salt and baking powder to the flour.Combine in a SEPARATE bowl.

Add in the dry ingredients and the milk alternating 1 cup of dry INGREDIENTS and ½ cup of milk at a time.

Add one cup of the batter to 6 different bowls.

Color each bowl with your gel food coloring in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

Mix until the colors are fully combined.

Your choice here: Spoon or ziploc bags.

Either add the batter to 6 sandwich size ziploc bags and pipe just enough to make a thin layer of each color (maybe ¼ inch tall batter layers) OR with a small spoon, spoon just under a tablespoon of batter into each cup.

Start with purple, then blue, then green, then yellow, then orange and finally red.

Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Frosting

To make the frosting: Whip the butter in your stand mixer with your paddle attachment until you see the butter is lighter in color (1 minute).

Add in the vanilla.

Add in the powdered sugar in 1 cup increments with the milk 1 tablespoon at a time, ending with powdered sugar.

Mix on high for 1 minute after each addition.

Your frosting should be SUPER light and fluffy, just like a delicious vanilla cloud.

Using a closed star tip and decorating bag, pipe your frosting onto the cooled cupcakes.

The Origin of Cupcakes

Cakes in some form have been around since ancient times, and today's familiar round cakes with frosting can be traced back to the 17th century, made possible by advances in food technology such as: better ovens, metal cake molds and pans, and the refinement of sugar.

While it would be impossible to say who actually made the first cupcake, we can look at several firsts surrounding these sweet, baked,desserts.

Originally, before there where muffin tins or cupcake pans, cupcakes were baked in small pottery bowls called ramekins. Teacups and other ceramic mugs were also used. Bakers soon evolved standard forms of volume measurements (cups) for their recipes. 1234 cakes or quarter cakes became common, so named after the four main ingredients in cake recipes: 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, and 4 eggs.

The first official use of the phrase "cupcake" was an 1828 reference made in Eliza Leslie's Receipts cookbook.

Of course, small cakes without being called cupcakes existed before 1828. For example, during the 18th century, there were queen cakes which were very popular, individually portioned, pound cakes. There is also a 1796 recipe reference of "a cake to be baked in small cups" made by Amelia Simmons in her book American Cookery.

Fun Facts about cupcakes

In Britain cupcakes are called fairy cakes. Fairy cakes use a lighter glacé icing compared to the butter cream used by American bakers. They also are traditionally made with a lighter sponge cake as opposed to the thicker butter cakes used in our cupcakes. Alternatively, a fairy cake is a type of cupcake with its top cut off and replaced in two pieces, like wings. These are also called “butterfly cupcakes.”

In 2012, Sprinkles Bakery, the world’s first cupcake-only bakery from Beverly Hills, developed a hole in a wall ATM that dispenses cupcakes 24 hours a day. It holds up to 600 fresh cupcakes at a time! With cupcake flavors ranging from the classic vanilla, to deliciously sweet caramel apple, to oddly savory jalapeño cheddar, there is a cupcake for everyone

October 18th is National Chocolate Cupcake Day.

November 9th is National Vanilla Cupcake Day.

December 15th is National Lemon Cupcake Day.

Original cupcake recipes were not frosted, and usually were just flavored with spices or dried fruit.

Cupcakes gained popularity in 1919 when Hostess became mass producing them. But they weren’t the cream filled, frosted kind we all know until the 1950’s.

One New York company, named Crumbs, sold a massive $23.5 million worth of cupcakes in 2009

The largest cupcake ever was apparently one baked in Washington, DC. August 15, 2009 GourmetGiftBaskets.com broke the world record for largest cupcake ever made. The cupcake was 1,224 pounds, 4 foot tall by 10 foot wide, and had 2 million calories.It weighed a massive ton, and required 600 POUNDS of frosting

My sources are:

Dinnerthendessert.com

ThoughtCo.com

and gourmetgiftbaskets.com