Treat Day Wednesday–Rainbow Swirl Red Velvet Cupcakes

Well welcome back to another school year.  What with so much travelling and goings on here at the Bond/Bissett house, I decided to take the summer off from Treat Days.  But now that school is officially in, both kids are now full time, I’ve started it back up again.

Abby is now in 3rd grade and Rowan started kindergarten.  Honestly I’m happy and sad and I have no idea what to do with myself.  I don’t have to entertain every afternoon or watch either Disney Channel or Cartoon Network anymore during the day.  I get to do whatever I want (she’s says like there isn’t a ton of laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping to be done).  Anyway, it’s a big day here!

I’ve been so off of the baking kick lately that I didn’t have any ideas of what to make for the first 2013-2014 Treat Day Wednesday.  So I cheated.  I used a mix (please don’t take away my baker card) and then I used what I had in the pantry and gave them a wee bit of a makeover.

I used this mix I got at BJs:

Instead of water I used milk in the cake mix and in the icing I used 3 tbsp of milk instead of water,  added a cup of extra icing sugar (confectioners sugar) and used a combination of cream cheese and butter.  If you are dead set against using the oil, use applesauce or pumpkin puree in its place in the same amounts (I didn’t have any).  For making the cake extra moist, add an additional egg.

Then I went all fancy and pulled out the Americolor gel colours and made me a rainbow.  I divided the icing into 6 bowls evenly (I used a large ice cream scoop).  I then coloured them red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.  I put half of each amount in stripes next to each on top of some plastic wrap. Then I folded it over and made it into one pouch for an icing bag.  I then inserted into the tip and piped onto the cupcake.  It gives it a really pretty rainbow look.

Then I took a dragonfly cutter and cut a few out of some left over rolled fondant and painted them, again with Americolor gels.  I let them dry and added them to the tops.  Why dragonflies you ask? Well that is the mascot of the girl’s elementary school.

As for the taste?  DELISH!!!  (As quoted by Abby and Rowan in unison)  So never feel bad for using a box, lots of people do or they wouldn’t keep making them.

I hope you enjoyed our first treat day back and I hope you come back every Wednesday for fun treat ideas.

Thanks for looking!

*****

For those of you who are new, I started this Wednesday Treat Day when we moved out of the apartment complex we were living when we first moved to the USA.  The business office did treats for the kids getting off the bus every Wednesday and the girls loved it, so I kept it going.  Except now, instead of treats in the form of store bought cookies and chocolate bars, they get homemade treats with love from me!