Rainbow Waffles: Fun, colored cake batter, poured in to a waffle iron, make beautiful Belgian waffles that are a fun way to enjoy rainbow food for birthday parties or a Sunday brunch. They’d especially look amazing on this breakfast charcuterie board.
If you’re looking for a St. Patrick’s Day breakfast idea or just love the idea of making colorful waffles for a breakfast idea, you’re going to love these!
You’re also going to love making these Lucky Charms Pancakes, a magically delicious way to start your day, and our other delicious waffle recipes like these chocolate waffles, and these delicious blueberry waffles!
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⭐️ Why This Recipe Works
- It uses a few ingredients: Since this recipe uses a cake mix, you’ll only need just a few other ingredients to make this rainbow waffle recipe.
- Coloring: Although we suggest below how to get these vibrant colors with a certain food coloring, and do one color per waffle, you can easily change up the colors you choose! (From pastels to only using 2 colors, etc.)
- Ready in only 25 minutes: These colorful rainbow waffles only take 25 minutes to make! So even though they look fancy, they sure don’t take a lot of time or a lot of work!
🧾 Ingredients Needed
I’ve highlighted a couple of ingredients with some relevant notes. Aside from this, the ingredients needed are pretty basic.
- Cake Mix – any white cake mix brand should do! (The most common size is 15.25 ounces.)
- **Coloring – For these vibrant colors, we used the brand Chefmaster Liqua-gel in the colors: super red, neon brite orange, lemon yellow, leaf green, neon brite blue, and neon brite purple.
📖 Substitutions
Cake Mix – even though we haven’t tried this substitute for this recipe, you may be able to use pancake mix to make rainbow pancakes (make sure to check and see what changes need to be made for ingredients) or even your favorite waffle mix. However, do note that using a waffle mix or pancake mix, can alter the coloring of the waffles since they can turn golden brown when cooked.
👩🏻🍳 How to Make Rainbow Waffles
You’ll begin by making the whole batch of waffle batter but then will be separating the batter into small individual bowls, to make different colors for the waffles.
*Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!*
STEP 1. Make waffle batter. In a large mixing bowl, beat together cake mix, water, vegetable oil, and eggs. Beat on high for 2 minutes scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed (Image 1).
STEP 2. Divide batter. Separate the waffle batter evenly into 6 separate bowls (Image 2).
STEP 3. Color the batter. Color one bowl of batter red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue, and one purple. Stir each bowl well to blend food coloring into the batters (Image 3).
STEP 4. Preheat the waffle iron to a low heat setting.
STEP 5. Spray. Once fully heated, spray the waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray.
STEP 6. Make waffles. Depending on the size of your waffle maker, each color of batter should make one waffle.
(Usually around 3/4 cup but irons can differ so make sure to just cover the bottom of the waffle iron.)
Pour one colored batter in to the hot waffle iron, and close waffle maker.
Be careful not to add too much batter to the waffle iron though, or the waffle iron will overflow (Image 4).
Your waffle maker should have an indicator on it to let you know when the waffle is done baking but usually takes about 2-3 minutes per waffle (Image 5).
Carefully remove the waffle from the waffle iron.
STEP 7. Repeat steps 5 & 6 for the rest of the batters.
STEP 8. Serve warm, and top with whipped cream, syrup, and rainbow sprinkles if desired.
🍳 Equipment Needed
- measuring cups and spoons of various sizes
- mixing bowls of various sizes
- electric mixer
- spatula
- non-stick cooking spray
- waffle iron
💭 Recipe Pro Tip
Cut in to a rainbow shape. To make fun little rainbows out of the waffles, cut them in half to form a half circle. Spray a dollop of whipped cream on the ends to look like an actual rainbow!
📋 Recipe FAQs
It’s best to store any leftover waffles in the refrigerator.
Yes, if sealed properly in a sealed food-safe container or bag, these can be frozen for up to 2 months. Make sure the waffles cool completely before storing in the fridge or freezer (to prevent condensation inside the container which would lead to soggy leftovers).
No, these are softer waffles than the freezer style of waffles, so they’ll fall apart in a standard toaster. They’re best reheated in the microwave.
🧇 More Waffle Recipes
If you love waffles as much as we do, here are other waffle-related recipes we think you’ll love:
Did you make this? I’d be so grateful if you left a “star” rated-review below to let me know what you thought! Then, the next time you need a quick and easy recipe, come back to Fantabulosity to browse all of my easy recipes!
📖 Recipe
Rainbow Waffles
Equipment
- waffle maker
Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix
- 1 cup water
- ⅓ cup oil
- 3 eggs
- gel food coloring: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple For these vibrant colors, we used the brand Chefmaster Liqua-gel in the colors: super red, neon brite orange, lemon yellow, leaf green, neon brite blue and neon brite purple.
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together cake mix, water, vegetable oil and eggs. Beat on high for 2 minutes scraping down sides of bowl with a spatula as needed.
- Separate batter evenly into 6 bowls. This works out to be about 153 grams of batter per bowl.
- Color batters. Color one bowl of batter red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue and one purple. Stir each bowl well to blend food coloring into batters.
- Preheat waffle iron to a low heat setting.
- Once fully heated, spray waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray.
- Depending on the size of your waffle maker, each color of batter should make one waffle. (Usually around 3/4 cup but irons can differ so make sure to just cover the bottom of the waffle iron.)Pour one colored batter in to the hot waffle iron, and close waffle maker. Be careful not to add too much batter to the waffle iron or the waffle iron will overflow. Your waffle maker should have an indicator on it to let you know when the waffle is done baking (takes about 2-3 minutes per waffle).
- Carefully remove the waffle from the waffle iron.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
wilhelmina says
This made for such a fun breakfast treat! Gorgeous and yummy too!
jess says
This is the best birthday breakfast that I could ever think of! Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe
Jamie says
The kids loved these rainbow waffles! Going to make again on St. Patrick’s Day!