4th of July Cupcakes

I love treats. Especially homemade treats. When making treats, I tend to be closer to the practical end of the preparation spectrum. Therefore, I generally opt for the cake in a box solution when making a cake or cupcakes. I made these patriotic cupcakes over the weekend for a BBQ with my family. They were pretty easy to make (thanks Pillsbury). The Sweet Toot Fairy has nothing on me!

4th of July Patriotic Cupcakes

Supplies & How To

I used a store bought cake. This is the funfetti mix, but I didn’t end up using the funfetti mix-ins. Have you heard that you can use applesauce as a replacement for oil in your recipes? You can! The recipe called for 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Instead I used 1/3 cup natural applesauce. I think it makes your cake a bit more moist and you save some calories! I ended up making my own frosting instead of using the store bought frosting.

Get some cute cupcake liners for your holiday cupcakes. Amazon.com has a good selection and variety of cupcake liners. Shop Sweet Lulu also has some adorable cupcake liners.

Once your cake is all mixed-up, divide the cake batter into two separate bowls.

Color the batter with food coloring. I hear the coloring gels work best, but I haven’t tried them before and didn’t have any on hand.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners. I did red bottoms on half and blue bottoms on the other half, then alternated the tops.

Yum!

I made a basic buttercream frosting. I used 1 cup butter (room temperature) 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract and about 7 cups powdered sugar.

Once the frosting was all mixed up, I used this cool new frosting tool I just bought – the Wilton Dessert Decorator plus. It worked great! I loved frosting my cupcakes with it. I even got it 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I used a star tip to frost the cupcakes and finished with some sprinkles.