Neopolitan Cupcakes

I remember being so excited as a little girl when my parents would buy Neopolitan ice cream!  It was the perfect combination of three great flavors in one bowl of goodness.  It's been years since I've enjoyed this nostalgic treat, but I had some left over cake batters (chocolate, vanilla and strawberry) and suddenly found myself in a daydream about sitting down with a bowl of yummy goodness as a little girl.

What do you do with extra strawberry, chocolate and vanilla cake batter?  Neopolitan cupcakes of course!

I wasn't quite sure if what I saw in my head was going to work in the cupcake liner, but I was sure willing to give it a try.  I held one end of my pan at about a 45degree angle and dropped a spoon full of chocolate batter into the bottom corner, next a spoon full of vanilla in the middle, and finally a spoon full of strawberry at the top.  When I sat my pan back down on the counter, I was excited to see that the colors didn't mix into a brown pool of mud!  Instead, the colors stayed separate in three little sections inside my cupcake liner.  Might as well pop them in the oven and see what happens!

Here's what the batter looked like going into the oven

And here's what they looked like after cooking!

So excited that my little experiment worked, I wanted to be just as creative with my frosting.  I whipped up a batch of my favorite buttercream, then separated it into three bowls.  I left the first bowl as is-the original white buttercream that we love so much.  To the second bowl, I added some light pink coloring--thinking back, it might have been even more yummy if I'd have added strawberry flavoring to get a true strawberry frosting.  To the third bowl, I whipped in some dark chocolate cocoa powder to make a delicious chocolate buttercream.  Now the fun (not so fun) part...filling my pastry bag as full as possible while trying to keep the three colors of frosting separate.  I held my breath hoping for the best...and it worked!





 

All in all, I'm calling this little experiment a success!

Enjoy!