Skittles Cupcakes with Skittles Frosting

I have a friend that LOVES Skittles.
At some point during every Friday night high school football game, Lee will send one of the kids to the concession stand for a bag of Skittles. 
If he's watching a movie, you can be sure that Skittles are within reach.
Lee loves to taste the rainbow :)

The fabulous people at OXO sent me some new baking tools and challenged me to use them to
 "bake a difference" to help fight childhood cancer.

I couldn't wait to try out the Cupcake Corer, so I decided to make some Skittles cupcakes for Lee, while at the same time helping kid's with cancer.
For this blog post, OXO will be donating $100 to Cookies For Kids' Cancer, a non-profit organization founded by two OXO employees in 2008. 

The cupcake corer made the perfect little spot for a Skittles surprise :)
It was so easy to use!

You can help by looking for OXO baking tools with this sticker and OXO will donate 25 cents in support of pediatric cancer as part of the company’s $100,000 pledge to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer in 2013.

I used my Magic Bullet to crush Skittles candies into coarse powder form.
I added the powder to my vanilla buttercream to make Skittles frosting.

Skittles Cupcakes

1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup canola oil
1  bag Skittles candy

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place cupcake liners into cupcake pan.
In a large mixing bowl combine cake mix, eggs, buttermilk and canola oil with an electric mixer.
Beat for 2 minutes; occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl.
Using a large cookie scoop, drop batter into liners.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool.
Using a cupcake corer, cut a hole in the top center of each cooled cupcake.
Fill with Skittles candy.

Skittles Buttercream Frosting

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

6 cups confectioners sugar
1 T milk or heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup Skittles candy, crushed

Crush Skittles candy in a blender, food processor or Magic Bullet.

I used a Magic Bullet and crushed them into a coarse dust.

In the bowl of your stand mixer add butter and beat for about 1 minute.

Add confectioners sugar one cup at a time.
Add milk and vanilla extract and beat until light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes.
Add crushed Skittles and beat for another minute.
Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. 
Top with additional Skittles.
Makes 24 cupcakes.

I think Lee liked them :)