Since Memorial Day is coming up, I wanted to write about a simple patriotic dessert that tastes so so amazing. For this month, I made red, white, and blue cupcakes. To incorporate red, I made the flavor red velvet; for the white, I made cream cheese frosting; and for the blue, I topped the cupcake off with some fresh blueberries. These recipes are so incredibly amazing, and I don’t think I have ever had better cream cheese frosting than this recipe that I found, written by Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking. It all marries so well together, and I loved it! 

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I am so glad that we can have some of our friends in our little town over for Memorial Day! I am going to use these cupcakes for that, and I am super excited for everyone to taste these yummy treats! There are a lot of different events you could make these cupcakes for: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veteran’s Day, etc. you can also vary the design of your cupcakes, like I did. I used some of my leftover frosting to make a filling inside the cupcakes. Here are the recipes below:

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• • 1 ¼ cups cake flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ¼ cup butter, softened
  • 2 tablespoons red food coloring
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  •  ½ cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
  • ½ recipe cream cheese frosting

     Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a handheld mixer, stir together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and cocoa powder.
• Add the butter, food coloring, and egg to the dry ingredients and blend until fully combined. (Tip: I didn’t measure out my red food coloring, I just kept adding in more and more until I reached the desired color. You will want it to be nice and bright so that your cupcakes don’t come out brownish and looking like meatloaf!).

• In a small bowl, combine the vanilla, buttermilk, and vinegar together and then gradually whisk into the flour mixture until well combined (but take care not to overmix).
• Divide the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups. They should be no more than 2/3 of the way full.

• Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to fully cool.
• Once the cupcakes are completely cool, you can frost them with the cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Ingredients:

• 5 cups powdered sugar, sifted lightly to remove any lumps
• 2 cups (16 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature
• ½ cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high, cream together the cream cheese and butter.
• Once light and fluffy, add in the powdered sugar and vanilla and whip until it is smooth and creamy.
• This can be stored covered in the fridge for up to 4 days.

When I decorated my cupcakes, I used some of my cream cheese (Recipe: Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking) as a filling since you only need half of the cream cheese recipe to frost the cupcakes. I recommend using multiple spoons when doing this so that you don’t get crumbs in your frosting when you ice it. I would say that you probably want to spoon in your frosting for the filling rather than piping it in so that you don’t get crumbs in your piping bag.

I then used a separate spoon to smooth out the filling so that you don’t have a lump. After I filled them, I frosted them by spiraling around the center with a piping bag to make a flat surface on the cupcakes. I took a different spoon and smoothed out the icing so that I had a nice, smooth finish.

Then I took my blueberries and placed them strategically to cover the little lump in the middle of the cupcake. I also layered them a bit to give the cupcakes a little bit of height by dipping the bottom of the blueberry in the frosting and sticking on top of the others. For a fun patriotic touch, you could make a star with the blueberries.

    What are some of your ideas to give your own little twist on these delicious cupcakes? Why don’t you leave your idea below in the comments, so that others that read this could use your idea for their cupcakes! Thank you so much for reading this, I can’t wait to hear about what you think! I hope you have fun making these delicious cupcakes, and I hope whoever tries them thinks they are delicious!

                                                             Happy baking,

                                                                            Payton