We are fairly new to blogging and we have had a little trouble planning our posts in time for holidays. It was about 2 days before Valentine’ s Day that we decided to make red velvet cupcakes in honor of the holiday. We got a little better for St. Patrick’s Day. Planning nearly a whole week in advance. I don’t know what happened for Easter, but we found ourselves making Cadbury Egg cupcakes the Friday before Easter. We have made a lot of progress since then and we were ready for the 4th of July more than a week ahead of time. How good are we? Not only did we make these cupcakes in honor of the holiday but we made something else too. You will just have to check back tomorrow to see what kind of dessert we made with hamburgers. Intrigued? You should be.
We racked our brains and finally decided to make firework cupcakes with red, white and blue frosting. We used a recipe for funfetti cupcakes from How Sweet It Is. Instead of using ball sprinkles though, we used bar sprinkles. I don’t know if there is a more technical name for these sprinkles but you know what I’m talking about, right? I am no expert on sprinkles. And of course we made our fourth of July cupcakes mini. To make these cupcakes extra festive we made tri-color frosting. If you’re making these for another occasion feel free to use any color frosting you’d like. I think it’s a pretty cool technique. We don’t just make pretty food though. These cupcakes tasted just as good as they looked.
Here is what you'll need
Cream the butter and sugar
Add the eggs
Add the vanilla
Combine the dry ingredients
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixer
Add the milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients
Mix completely and add the sprinkles
Fold them in evenly
Fill cups about 2/3 full and bake for 13 minutes
Meanwhile start the frosting by creaming the butter
Add the confectioner's sugar
And the vanilla
The cupcakes are ready, take them out to cool. We're almost there now.
Divide the frosting into 3 bowls and add your food coloring
Wrap the frosting in plastic wrap making sure plastic divides the colors
Pipe the cupcakes
Happy 4th of July!
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 whole eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup assorted brightly colored sprinkles
For the frosting
2 sticks of butter, softened
2 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of milk, if needed
food coloring
Note: Makes 12 full size cupcakes or 24 minis
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar with a stand mixer until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients. Add half of the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. Add the milk. Once mixed, add the rest of the dry ingredients. Fold in sprinkles. I read somewhere that the bar sprinkles work better than the ball sprinkles so that is what we used. Pour into cupcake tins and fill 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 13 minutes for minis and 18-20 minutes for regular sized cupcakes.
While the cupcakes are baking get going on the frosting. Cream the butter using a stand mixer until smooth and creamy. With the mixer on low speed, add in confectioner’s sugar slowly. Gradually increase mixer speed and add vanilla, then beat for 2-3 minutes, scraping down sides and bottom of the bowl. If frosting is too thick, add milk 1 teaspoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. If it’s too thin, add sugar gradually until it thickens. Once you have the desired thickness divide the frosting into 3 bowls. Add food coloring. We did one bowl of white, one bowl of red and one bowl of blue. We tried a couple different techniques using 3 different colors and this worked best for us. Cut a large piece of plastic wrap. About 1.5 feet long. Put one color of frosting and then roll, add another color and roll, add your third color and roll. You want each color to be separated by a layer of plastic wrap. Twist both ends of the plastic wrap and insert one end through a large star tip. Then put the whole thing in a pastry bag. Pipe a little frosting until you get all 3 colors to come out at once.
Source: Adapted from How Sweet it is
