Happy 4th of July!!
To celebrate, I made mini funfetti cupcakes decorated in red white and blue to take to a friend’s bbq. The inspiration for this patriotic dessert came from a couple of places. First, when I was growing up, my Aunt Jean always would make a 4th of July flag cake with Cool Whip, strawberries, and blueberries. I wanted to do a similar idea but I thought cupcakes would be better for easy serving. I ended up using blue frosting with white chocolate chips for the stars, and white frosting with rows of red M&Ms for the stripes. (BTW – Wegmans, one of our grocery stores, now sells M&Ms by the color, like at the M&M store in NYC! Expensive though….$7.99 for a pound!!!)
I realized it would be more manageable to make mini cupcakes so that it would serve more people and it would me more flexible in terms of making the stars and stripes. My little brother had been begging for funfetti cupcakes, so that was that! Also, I had been looking through some old blog bookmarks and saw a similar idea on Baking Bites, and liked the way the cupcakes made the flag look like it was waving.
So that’s my story for today! They were really fun to make, and the funfetti cake recipe I adapted from Amber’s Kitchen was easy and delicious. They were supremely cute as mini cupcakes – I wish I had taken a picture before I frosted them! I didn’t love the buttercream frosting that I made, so I won’t post it – I’ll have to keep searching for a better one! It wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked, and overly sweet – likely a result from using too much powdered sugar? Also, I used a whole tiny bottle of blue food coloring gel and couldn’t get the dark blue I wanted… turned out more of an electric blue. I wonder if they make dark food colorings?
Funfetti Mini Cupcakes
Adapted from Amber’s Kitchen
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup rainbow sprinkles
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line mini cupcake pan with paper liners.
2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg whites to the bowl and beat until combined. Add in the vanilla extract and mix until incorporated. Mix in the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until incorporated. Fold in the sprinkles with a spatula.
3. Use a large spoon to fill cupcake pan – each should be about 3/4 full. Bake for 15 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely.
A Sprinkle In Time 