Why just sing “The Star Spangled Banner” when you can eat it? Show your patriotic spirit by bringing a tray of these American flag cupcakes, inspired by Sally’s Baking Addiction, to the party! Here, we have not only the recipes for scrumptious cupcakes and frosting, but also the tips and tricks for arranging them to make up your favorite patriotic dessert.
Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veteran’s Day — or, really, any day you’re feeling appreciative of our country — all need a dessert that dazzles with the red, white and blue. Cupcakes arranged to represent our American flag are so much easier than oft-served sheet-pan flag cakes — no slicing required! Everyone can just grab a sweet frosted cupcake without missing a minute of the celebration. To make this the best patriotic dessert you’ve ever made, we used two special recipes from Sally’s Baking Addiction: very vanilla cupcakes and vanilla bean frosting. You’ll need a total of 50 cupcakes: 12 with blue frosting on top, 18 with red, and 20 with white. (We used colored cupcake liners, too, to play up the colored effect.) The “flag” itself is made up of 48 cupcakes — six rows of 8 cupcakes — with two additional cupcakes that you can set alongside to represent Alaska and Hawaii. If you’d like stars on the blue cupcakes, just pipe some on with the white frosting, or roll out some white fondant and cut out a few stars. Fifty cupcakes later, you will have an edible rendition of the American flag with a cupcake for each state!
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Whisk to combine the dry ingredients
In another bowl, scrape the vanilla bean
Add melted butter
Whisk together dry ingredients and wet ingredients
Scoop equal amounts of batter into lined cupcake pan to bake
Add confectioner’s sugar to start making the frosting
Pour in cream and vanilla
Beat until frosting is smooth for these American flag cupcakes
Add blue food coloring to one bowl
Mix until the color is even throughout
Add red food coloring to another bowl
Combine until there are no streaks
Begin piping frosting onto cooled cupcakes using an open star tip
Pipe frosting in a circular pattern working inwards
Repeat with each color for American flag cupcakes
Pipe a white star onto the center of blue frosted cupcakes
How beautiful and festive are these American flag cupcakes?
They taste as good as they look!
Impressive and patriotic dessert!
Gorgeous festive cupcakes that are easy to make & eat!
Yield 12 cupcakes Courses Desserts
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature4–5 cups confectioners’ sugar1/4 cup heavy cream1 teaspoon pure vanilla extractSeeds scraped from 1/2 split vanilla beanSalt, to tasteGel or paste icing color or liquid food coloring in red and blueWhite fondant (optional)
Top row: 4 blue starred cupcakes, following by 4 red cupcakesSecond row: 4 blue cupcakes, followed by 4 white cupcakesThird row: 4 blue cupcakes, followed by 4 red cupcakesFourth rows: 8 white cupcakesFifth row: 8 red cupcakesSixth row: 8 white cupcakesOff to left and under flag, place two red cupcakes for Alaska and Hawaii.
