Galaxy Cupcake

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F degrees and add cupcake liners to a cupcake/muffin pan.
2. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt to a large bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
3. Add milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and eggs to a mixer bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute at medium speed.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until well combined. Stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
5. Slowly, with the mixer on low speed, add the gel food color and the water to the batter and mix just until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure everything is well combined.
6. The batter is thin, so I find it easier to add it to a pancake dispenser. This makes filling the cupcake liners much easier.
7. Fill the cupcake liners just a little over half and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs, not raw batter. The cupcakes were perfectly done in my oven at the 20-minute mark. Do NOT open the oven until 15 minutes have passed. Start checking on the cupcakes at the 15-minute mark. If you are baking mini cupcakes, they may be done in 9-12 minutes; start checking after 9 minutes.
8. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and allow them to cool in the pan for 3-5 minutes. Then, transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Frosting:

1. Add butter to a large mixer bowl and mix until smooth.
2. Add 4 cups of powdered sugar and mix until smooth.
3. Add the vanilla extract and milk and mix until smooth.
4. Add the remaining 4 cups of powdered sugar and mix until smooth.

Assembling:

1. Start by preparing your work area. Gel food color can easily stain your working surface, so cover it with parchment paper or plastic wrap.
2. Fix a piping bag with a large star tip or any other piping tip you like. Place the bag inside a tall glass and slightly turn it inside at the opening.
3. Add a few drops, about 1/2 teaspoon of gel food color, to 3 small bowls, and paint the gel food color inside the pastry bag using three different coloring brushes.
4. I recommend overlapping colors in some spots and leaving a few tiny uncolored spots in some places to add a more concentrated layer. I recommend coloring 2/3 of the pastry bag.
5. Having the bag in a tall glass makes handling it much easier. Any excess gel food color will drain to the bottom, making adding the buttercream even easier.
6. Fill the pastry bag 2/3 with buttercream and secure it with a pastry bag ring/elastic.
7. Pipe a little and dump, as the color will be very concentrated at the tip.
8. Pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes and decorate with edible glitter silver stars.
9. Refrigerate the cupcakes at least one hour before serving. Store in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Enjoy!