Happy 4th of July everyone!

For those of you not familiar with this wonderful American holiday, this is the day that our great country became independent from England in 1776. I won’t go more in depth into the American history as I am not a big history buff myself. :P

Anyways, this is about my food adventures! So to celebrate this holiday, I made these cupcakes to take to my mother-in law’s house for our celebratory lunch. For the batter, I followed my white cupcake recipe from the Twilight Cupcakes. Since I already have the recipe for the cupcakes, I will focus on the assembly of the cupcakes, and also the frosting.

Hope everyone has a wonderful 4^th of July weekend! :)

Red, White and Blue Cupcakes

Ingredients:

One recipe of the Twilight Cupcakes

Directions:

Once the batter is made, divide it into 3 portions in 3 separate bowls. Add red coloring gel to one portion, blue coloring gel to another portion, and leave the third portion white (Note: to add coloring to my batter and frosting, I use the Wilton food coloring gels since they don’t change the consistency of the batter/frosting nor add any flavor).

Fill the lined cupcake forms about 2/3 of the way full and bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven set at 350°F until a toothpick comes out clean.

These cupcakes are ready to be frosted!

Here is the recipe for my favorite vanilla buttercream frosting:

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:
20 tbsp. (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/8 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. heavy cream  

Directions:
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds.  Add confectioners’ sugar and salt; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds.  Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds.  Scrape bowl, add vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds.  Then increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.  

To create the colored swirling effect on the frosting, I added streaks of the red and blue colors directly onto the piping bag, 2 streaks of each color. For the decorating tip, I used the Wilton Decorating Tip 2C. 

Happy Independence Day everyone!

The inspiration and guidance for this project came from Tidy Mom for the cupcakes and Annie's Eats for the frosting.