Red White and Blue-tiful Cupcakes

For Fourth of July, I knew I wanted to make some fun cupcakes. I'd had this idea that I came up with, based on the Colorburst cupcakes I had recently made that were inspired by the Our Best Bites Blog.

I wasn't sure if they would turn out as cute as the image I had in my head, because sometimes working with darker colors, like red, can be tricky. But, I'm actually super happy with the end result. I will actually be making them again soon for a Bake Sale in which I am donating them to. This Bake Sale is for a co-worker who was recently injured. So, this batch was a test run for the bake sale. These are pretty easy to make, so I included all of the steps, in case you want to try them yourself!

To start off, I dumped all the ingredients into the mixer.

**I am going to confess- this is a boxed mix. Yes, I said it, boxed. Normally, I really enjoy baking cakes from scratch, but during the week I only have from after dinner, until bed time to complete my baking projects, so I went for easy!**

After all the ingredients are well blended together, I measured the total amount of matter and then divided the batter into three measuring cups and dyed one red, one blue, and left one white. I chose white cake for this reason- so one of the batters could remain white.


Next, I layered the three batters into cupcake liners. I went to Hobby Lobby and found some cute festive ones for Fourth of July.


Then, watch 'em bake. Now, you could stand right in front of the oven and just watch them like a hawk, as my two year old did. Or you can just set a timer and walk away.


After they are done baking and cooling, it's time to ice and decorate them! Just use your favorite icing. For mine, I used a 1M Wilton tip to make a classic swirl on top. You could stop here, but I thought mine were missing somethiing.


So while I was at Hobby Lobby getting the liners, I also found these cute star sprinkles, so I added those.


And then for the final touch, I made red fondant stars, and brushed edible glitter dust on them.


What the real fun would actually be, was to rip the liner off and see the absolutely adorable red, white, and blue layers.



I wish you all a very happy Fourth of July! And hope we all take time to remember how lucky we are to live in freedom and thank those who have made, and continue to make that possible.

xoxo,
Katie