red, white & blue cupcake for Fourth of July

My friend mentioned the other day that she was going to her in laws’ house to do fireworks this weekend. I asked what the occasion was. She gave me a strange look and said “the 4th of July?” Oh, right! It’s the Fourth in less than a week! I kinda didn’t realize it was so soon. Even though I’ve already made red, white and blue ice cream for the Fourth of July AND red, white and blue cupcakes. Yet I’m apparently unable to keep track of when that darn holiday is actually going to happen…

Good thing I already know what to make on the big day.

These cupcakes are super easy, super cute, and guess what? I found SPARKLER CANDLES to go on top of them!

I found them at Walmart, if you’re wondering. They’re so fun! Once lit, they burn like normal for a few seconds and then start sparkling just like a real sparkler. And if you blow them out before they’re done, they’ll relight all on their own! You can see what they look like in this quick video that shows you how to make red, white, and blue cupcakes:

Fun, right?

The video generally shows how to put these together, but here’s a quick recap:

Mix up a box of white cake mix as directed on the package. Divide the batter into two bowls and tint one red and one blue. Use lots of food coloring for nice bright colors. (NOTE: I’ve seen both red velvet and blue velvet cake mixes in the store, so you could use one of each of those if you want lots of cupcakes.)

Fill 12 cupcake liners with blue batter and 12 with red batter. Bake as directed and allow to cool.

Prepare your favorite white frosting. I used this easy recipe for basic buttercream frosting and it turned out delicious! Plan on close to twice as much frosting as you usually use for 24 cupcakes since you’ll be layering frosting in the middle and on top of each cupcake (so if you use the recipe I linked above, you’ll need to triple it. At least.).

Once the cupcakes are cool, peel off the liners and slice each cupcake in half. Pipe each cupcake bottom with frosting, then top with a cupcake top of the other color, then pipe on more frosting to finish.

(I just ordered this set of extra large cupcake frosting tips from Amazon. They’re awesome and make it super easy and fast to frost cupcakes. Just pay attention to how much frosting you’re using – a lot comes out at once.)

Add sprinkles for a little extra fun, and then set each cupcake on top of a flattened out liner to serve.

Because the cupcakes sit out of their liners, I wouldn’t frost these very far in advance or the cupcakes may start to dry out (that being said, my kids still ate them two days later, so obviously they didn’t consider that a problem!)