This tutorial shows you how to make rainbow frosting for piping on cakes, cupcakes, and cookies!
Piping rainbow frosting is such a fun way to brighten up your desserts. It's perfect for St. Patrick's Day, Pride, or simply making some playful cakes and cupcakes.
Plus, your rainbows are completely customizable-you can make the rainbows bright, dark, pastel, really use any variation of the rainbow shades of frosting (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple).
Ingredients
- Buttercream Frosting: You can use your favorite light colored buttercream frosting. American buttercream, Swiss meringue buttercream, Italian meringue buttercream or store bought frosting all work!
- Food Coloring: In red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I prefer gel food coloring for the most vibrant colors.
Tools
- Bowls and Spatula: You’ll need 6 bowls for mixing the different shades of frosting.
- Plastic Wrap: For spreading on the different colors of frosting
- Piping Bags and Tips: For piping the rainbow frosting.
How to Make
Step 1: Divide Frosting
Portion out your frosting equally among the six bowls or cups. You can eyeball it or use a kitchen scale to make it exact. Each bowl will represent one color of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
Step 2: Add Food Coloring
Start with a small amount of gel food coloring to each bowl and mix well. Gradually add more until you reach your desired shade. BOth bright rainbows and pastel rainbows make adorable cakes and cupcakes. Remember, you can always add more color, but you can’t take it away! Check out my full post on coloring buttercream for extra tips.
Step 3: Add to Plastic Wrap
Spread Evenly: Spread out onto a piece of plastic wrap flat on the counter. Pipe vertical lines of each color in rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green blue, and purple) next to each other on a plastic wrap. You can also just just plop it down using a spatula or spoon and gently shape into lines.
Step 4: Add to a Piping Bag and Use on your favorite desserts!
Roll Up: Roll up the plastic wrap to create a frosting log with buttercream colors, making sure they are tightly wrapped so they don't push out when piping.
Cut: Snip the end of the plastic wrapped frosting log with scissors.
Add to Prepared Piping Bag: Add the rainbow frosting to a prepared piping bag with your desired tip, and you are ready to frost your cupcakes or cake!
Tips and Tricks
- Use gel food coloring for the most vibrant colors.
- Check out this post on coloring buttercream frosting, including tips for getting super dark colors without tons of food dye.
- It helps to make sure all the colors are fairly distinct. If you're purple is too close to the shade of your blue, it can start to look murky. I prefer using royal blue or sky blue rather than navy blue for this reason.
How to Make Rainbow Frosting
Equipment
- bowls
- plastic wrap
INGREDIENTS
- Buttercream Frosting see notes on types
- Gel Food Coloring red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple
Instructions
- Portion out your frosting equally among six bowls or cups. You can eyeball it or use a kitchen scale to make it exact. Each bowl will represent one color of the rainbow.
- Add a small of gel food coloring to each bowl and mix well. Gradually add more until you reach your desired shade. !
- Lay a piece of plastic or saran wrap on a counter or table. Pipe vertical lines of each frosting color in rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green blue, and purple) next to each other on a plastic wrap. You can also just just plop it down using a spatula or spoon and gently shape into lines.
- Spread: Spread out a pe of plastic wrap flat on the counter. Pipe vertical lines of each color in rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green blue, and purple) next to each other on a plastic wrap. You can also just just plop it down using a spatula or spoon and gently shape into lines.
- Roll up the plastic wrap to create a frosting log with buttercream colors, making sure they are tightly wrapped so they don't push out when piping. Snip the end of the piping bag and frost your cupcakes or cake!
- Add to a piping bag and use on your favorite desserts!
Notes
- American buttercream, Swiss Meringue buttercream, Italian buttercream or store bought frosting all work!
- Use gel food coloring for the most vibrant colors.
- Check out this post on coloring buttercream frosting, including tips for getting super dark colors without tons of food dye.
- It helps to make sure all the colors are fairly distinct. If you're purple is too close to the shade of your blue, it can start to look murky. I prefer using royal blue or sky blue rather than navy blue for this reason.
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