After making the indulgent rainbow cake with cream cheese icing for our daughter's 6th birthday I wanted to see if I could make a healthier version. It may take a bit of time colouring 6 bowls of batter and layering them in the patty tins but the result is worth it - and makes the lunchbox extra special!

Makes 12 cupcakes
1 cup milk (I used rice)
1 tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
1/3 c olive oil
1 cup natural sweetener (I used rice syrup with a little bit of date syrup)
2 c flour (I used a mix of white and wholemeal spelt)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
food gel colours - red, yellow, green, blue

Preheat oven to 180C. Line 12 muffin tins with paper cupcake cases.

Put the milk in a bowl with the lemon juice and leave for 5 minutes. Add oil, zest and sweetener and whisk till combined.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mix in the wet ingredients and whisk to make a smooth batter. Divide batter evenly into 6 small bowls. I put about 1/3 c in each bowl. Colour each one with 1/4 tsp gel. Make orange with 2 parts yellow and 1 part red. Make purple with 3 parts red and 1 part blue.

Put 1 tsp of purple in each cupcake case. Follow with 1 tsp blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

Bake for 15-18 min until cooked through.

Cool on a wire rack. If you like you can drizzle the cupcakes with a mix or icing sugar and lemon juice and top with sprinkles.

For a vanilla cupcake replace the lemon juice and zest with 1 tsp vanilla extract.