July 4th cupcakes!

cupcake inside close
I really couldn't resist after seeing red, white and blue cupcakes here and here...and maybe somewhere else. The red, white and blue swirls of batter just looked too fun!

We had plans to meet our neighbors for the local 4th of July parade this morning, and I thought cupcakes seemed like a good way to start. It was only 9am, but hey, it's a holiday.
cupcake prep
My son helped me with the batter (although, I think he had more fun eating them than making them). Just make any yellow or white cupcake batter, divide into 3 bowls and tint one red and one blue. (Use gel paste food coloring, and it doesn't take much at all.) The recipe I used comes from this book....Cupcakes! by Eleanor Klivans (love this book!). The link to the recipe is here; it's delicious!

Drop the batter by the tablespoonful into the cupcake liners. Some we swirled with a toothpick and others we left as is. Both looked really neat on the inside.
cupcakes out
{I just loved the way these looked after inverting them out of the muffin tin!}

cupcakes
For the frosting, I did the same thing...tinted some of the frosting red and some blue. I put the blue and red frostings up the side of my icing bag and the white in the middle.
cupcakes inside
Hope you all are having a wonderful 4th of July! Get out there and see some fireworks!!!

♥Have you taken the Flavor-of-the-Month poll? Wondering what the heck I'm talking about?!?!?