Rainbow Cupcakes and Art Session

GG, Mommy, and Jack with our little creation.

I didn't get many pictures today in class but the session went really well. I can tell the Kindergarteners have matured so much even since our last session. Breaking up into 3 groups and having the student teacher there to assist didn't hurt at all either.


(Original prototype)
(Original prototype, overhead shot)

I couldn't find enough pom poms for the class though, so we decided to go with gold colored homemade modeling clay made with glitter. They molded and formed their own gold bars, beads, coins and nuggets ...worms, snakes, nests, and eggs, too!
I hot glued the pieces onto the lid and then I covered the loot with gold micro-glitter at the end.


(in progress)(drying)



We were going to use mini baby food jars for our pot o' gold, but found out there is no glass allowed on the bus, so this would have been a problem. I just happened to find 2 oz containers 10/$1 at the dollar store the same day I got that news! Super lucky. I painted the lids gold and the rims green so the top of the pot would be ready to go. I put the students' names on the lids and inside the pot with a sharpie. We decoupaged these with green tissue paper at one center with 1/3 of the class while we had sculpting at another center and the 3rd center assembled their rainbows. We planned on putting Skittles inside the pot and sending them home for decorating for St. Pat's the next day. Unfortunately, as usual, I underestimated how much those kids love glue! Waaaaay too much of it, so the pots were never going to dry in time for us to flip them over and fill them up. Oh, well. I think the cupcakes more than made up for it! they were gone so dang fast I seriously barely BARELY got a couple of pictures snapped as the last crumbs disappeared past their lips. I had to beg Savannah not to finish hers (the last one) so I could grab a photo. I sure wish I had gotten a better photo of the cupcake insides. They were such a hit. And I took a ton of pictures of the prep and process!

The papers always look different after they're baked, but I was looking for something colorful and they actually turned out to look kinda like arches and rainbows in the end.


Start with a white cake mix and 6 cups with zip lock bags pulled down over the rims. I measured out 1/2 cup of batter into each one until it was all gone and evenly distributed. Go easy on the food color, keep it controlled. I used food color gels which I hadn't done before, but they worked pretty good.



I mixed with skewers because I didn't want to lose too much excess batter on spoons. You can't waste a drop of batter or you won't make it to 24 cupcakes. However, DON'T use skewers. Use popsicle sticks that you can squeeze the excess off through the baggie. I totally punched holes through with the skewers on a couple bags. no bueno.


I'd also recommend trying to get as much contrast between orange and red as you can, go closer to yellow with the orange or as dark as you can with the red. It's hard to tell between the two after it's baked. After you are satisfied with your color mixes, massage the batter really well in the baggie to finish incorporating the food coloring.

so the trick is to put as little as you can and still cover the bottom of the paper. It won't look like much, but you won't have enough for 24 if you put too much. After mixing the color, snip a small hole in the baggie at the corner so you can control how fast the batter goes into the cups.


for subsequent layers, start on the outer edge and then drizzle in until filled in as much as possible. Err on the side of sparing, if you have extra, you can always go back and drizzle over open spots in your batter. Squeeze every bit down and out of the baggie.



bake as directed!
doh! didn't realize I'd gotten cream cheese frosting until I started to put these together. I used a whole can for the blue and about 1/3 of a can for the clouds. (no one complained or even asked about the flavor though!)


I was so worried I wouldn't find the rainbow candy strips and then I just happened to spot them one day in the dollar bins at Target. yay! I don't think I even used 1/2 a package for 24. I cut the strips in thirds, I believe, then bent and pressed them into the clouds.


Savannah was the last one I could catch that had enough of a cupcake left for me to get a picture of how they looked inside! They went that quick!
like I said.... (real quick!)
It was a fun day! Great project, awesome cupcakes. I love Kindergarten : )