Patriotic Celebration Cupcakes!

Patriotic Celebration Cupcakes! I have to admit, I love the Red, White and Blue!

If you have followed my posts, you will know that our whole family is/has been in the Military….particularly the Navy. 

The Captain and I are going to a brunch after Church tomorrow and I have been making the dessert, which happens to be cupcakes!  I wanted to start the Patriotic Holiday season….Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day with the old Red, White, and Blue.

We belong to a group who call themselves, The Birds in Paradise…I’ve posted about them before…See “Twas the Wearin’ O The Green” post in which we celebrated with a St. Patrick’s Day Buffet! The potluck brunch tomorrow is going to be fun.  The group is always doing something, somewhere and really enjoying life.  Those of us who work….and there are quite a few in our group, try to make the week-end gatherings.

Patriotic Celebration Cupcakes

So I have made Patriotic Celebration Cupcakes….and they look so pretty! 

It took a little effort but the results are well worth it!

The cake recipe is really a Pillsbury Moist white cake mix. 

You just make it according to the package directions…the back of my box gave a choice of using whole eggs or egg whites only. I used the whole eggs because I wasn’t planning on making anything to use up the yolks.  You can freeze yolks but I just went the simpler route this morning.  

Be sure to mix and beat your batter according to the directions…about 3 minutes after incorporation.  It makes a thicker, smoother batter. 

The Captain installed this mixer stand so it stores easily and lifts out of the cabinet with one finger! No heavy lifting! Yeah!

I divided the batter into three bowls….measuring out about 1 and 1/2 cups of batter per bowl.

The red icing looks orange in this shot….it is deceiving..it is bright Christmas red. Gotta work on my camera shots…..without red icing on the lens! (:

To make the blue icing was fairly easy and I used the blue food coloring…about 30 drops or you can squeeze out the gel and just keep mixing until you get the desired shade.

For the red…I used a lot of red food coloring….I had to mix gel and liquid (that was all I had on hand) but you can just keep mixing until you like the red color. (probably about 40-45 drops of liquid red food coloring)

I filled each cupcake liner about half full …I used a spoon to dip out first the red, then the white and then the blue cake mix into each paper liner…on some of the cupcakes, I added another little bit of red on the top and to some, a little bit more of the blue.

Each cupcake will look different on the inside and I really like that. 🙂

I have posted the simple recipe below.  Although it is so simple, a recipe card is not needed.  

However, I have included some of the tips that assist in making the candy mints on the  top of the cupcake as well as the steps I took to make it all come together.

For example: use white liners to bake your cupcakes and then place the pretty liners over the outside to better display your cupcakes!  The white liners adhere to the cupcake and as you can see from the photo above…the pretty liner is lost.  

I also used an inexpensive plastic candy mold.  You can purchase them at Michael s or Hobby Lobby. They are about 1.99 for each tray that holds 12 molds. 

Also, when filling candy molds….do not over fill. You can certainly use a little baggie and cut just a smidgen off the corner.  

It is better to cut off too little… then to cut off too much. : (

Not that I would have ever done that….

Ok…the truth is I have done that more often than I care to admit. 🙂

So less is more! 

Make sure you tap the mold on the counter a few times after filling…this removes any air bubbles.

Frost the cooled cupcakes with another baggie of icing or use a pastry bag to pipe on a pretty swirl.

Another tip I like to use with cupcakes and that is to not ice too close to the edge of the liner. I like to leave a small “rim” of cake visible, and then the big swirl of frosting makes the cupcake look so pretty!

Just sayin’…

Enjoy!

Me

Patriotic Celebration Cupcakes!

2014-05-17 09:30:43

Using a boxed cake mix and canned icing saves time and allows for more time to decorate your cupcakes. Since everyone can use a cake mix, I am going to show you a few tips on decorating with candy melts

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Ingredients

1. White Cake Mix as directed
2. Creamy frosting (in a can works just fine)
3. Candy Melts
4. red, white and blue sprinkles
5. Mold for making star topping
6. Pretty cupcake liners

Tips for using Candy Melts

1. Get to know your microwave- only heat your candy melts at 30-50% power, not any higher than that!
2. Colored candy melts are very concentrated, you don’t need tons of colored disks to get a bright color. You can add them to white candy melts to get the color you desire.
3. Be very patient while warming your candy melts and plan for them to take about 20-40 minutes to be melted properly.
4. You can easily get the candy melts too hot; they will get thicker and clumpier the hotter they get.
5. It goes against everything we know about chocolate, but sometimes letting candy melts sit and cool will help more than stirring them.
6. It is easier to melt more candy melts at once rather than less.
7. Fresh candy melts seem to work better than candy melts that have been stored for a while (3+ months).
8. You do not need to refrigerate it so it hardens.
9. Just give it enough time and it becomes nice and hard just like they were when they were little disks. Now, I have put mine in the freezer for just a short while, but some may tell you that may change the finish on your candy. I never had a problem.
10. The little toppers should just pop right out of the mold, if you have let it completely harden.
11. Every once in a while, I ran into a mold that was a little more difficult, but almost all the time, they pop right out.
12. When you use candy melts, you do nothing to prepare the mold!

Notes

1. I used a M1 Wilton tip to pipe on the icing and then I sprinkled on the sprinkles and then I placed the star topper on top of the cupcake. The last thing I did was to add a pretty cupcake liner over the other baking liner.
2. Get the kids involved making candy molds....they will love it!

Me and My Captain https://meandmycaptain.com/