Cooking with Saki

Happy St. Patty's Day, Blogfans! Put down your pint, because we're going to make a sweet treat in honor of the green holiday - Rainbow Cupcakes! I'll wait while you calm down; I was excited too.

Are you settled? Good.

If you've been imbibing in the Irish tradition of drinking yourself into a stupor, find a designated driver (and someone to supervise your oven use) and Erin Go Braugh yourself to the store to pick up:

1 box of white cake mix

Whatever your cake ix calls for (eggs, oil, etc)

1 box of food coloring

Cupcake wrappers

A lovely assistant

Grab your lovely assistant, and award 10 points to Gryffindor if she makes leprechaun faces while you make your Rainbow Cupcakes:

Follow the directions on the back of the box and whip up that mix. I'm not going to hold your hand through this one, Blogfans. Just do what the box tells you to do. once it's all mixed, separate into six small bowls. You'll want to use bowls slightly larger than the white ones shown, because it yielded quite the batter-y mess on my counters:

In the first bowl, add 9 drops red and 6 drops of blue food coloring

In the second bowl, add 12 drops of blue food coloring

In the third bowl, add 12 drops of green food coloring

In the fourth bowl, add 12 drops of yellow food coloring

In the fifth bowl, add 12 drops yellow and 4 drops of red food coloring

In the sixth bowl, add 18 drops of red food coloring (Love that red dye!)

Mix each bowl, respectively, until the color is even throughout:

Line your cupcake tin with wrappers and add a spoonful of the purple batter to the bottom of each wrapper. It might not cover the whole bottom, and that's okay, just make sure you get some in all of them. Follow suit with the ROY G BIV* rainbow (that's Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet for all of you science slackers). Pop them in an oven that has been preheated to whatever your cake mix box says, and bake for the recommended amount of time. Again, consult the box. Also, don't mock my dirty oven. Dinner overfloweth last night:

Once they cool, top them with a delicious cloud of whipped cream, and some gold coins, if you're super fancy**.

* But omit indigo, since it's been banished from the rainbow and has gone to hang with Pluto in the land of Fun Things Scientists Have Done Away With

** Much to the dismay of my children, we are not super fancy.