First Honorary Guest Blogger

I decided to have guest bloggers in order to keep my readers excited and to give them a break from me (not that anyone has made that specific request - yet!) My first honorary blogger is my older sister, Jessica. While I was out at the shooting range with my husband and our friends (not our typical Saturday in case you were wondering), my sister treated me to a pleasant surprise by creating the following blog entry that chronicled her morning with her son. Enjoy:


All week we had promised our son that if he behaved in school, we would go to the Audobon Zoo's Annual "Zoo-To-Do" on Friday and the Local Art Market on Saturday. We patiently marked off the days that he had no troubles in school with a sticker and counted down until Friday. The Zoo-To-Do went so well, and we retired for the night speaking of the wagon pull to the Art Market when we arose. It was such a disappointment when the day dawned, dreary and rainy. Scout was moody and unhappy about having to spend the entire day inside. Even before noon, his father had put him in time out for the second time when he began screaming in a high pitched scream when his little sister came near his collection of coveted super heroes. I was trying to think of how we could spend the day. I wasn’t excited about him sitting in front of the TV all day watching his “kid movies.” I looked over at him and noticed he had his nose pressed against the window staring out into the rain. "What are you doing, buddy?" I asked him. "I'm looking outside hoping to see a rainbow so we can go to the festival," he replied. I knew I couldn't produce that rainbow outside, but I was inspired by Bizzy's blog to have Scout and I bake one inside. I had remembered seeing a recipe for Rainbow Cupcakes in my baking cook book for kids that my sister had given me. Since “baby girl” was sleeping, and we could not make a trip to the grocery, I was hoping to have all the necessary ingredients for our project. I had all of the ingredients except M&Ms. So, I modified the recipe as follows and yielded 18 of my own Rainbow Cupcake creations. Scout LOVES sweets, and the dreary disappointing day turned into a fun filled morning of tasty goodness. He really liked using the food coloring and pouring sprinkles on the icing. Hope you enjoy!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large egg whites
Assorted food colorings
1 container (16 ounces) white frosting
Rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 (2 ¾ inch) muffin cups with paper or foil liners; set aside. In large bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Blend sugar, butter, milk and vanilla; beat about 2 minutes. Add egg whites; beat 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Place 1 drop desired food coloring into each muffin cup. Swirl gently with knife.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack. Spread frosting over cupcakes; decorate with rainbow sprinkles.