cupcake challenge ::: week 11 ~ flag day

sunday starts national flag week and the 14th is flag day.  to start off the celebration a little early we made flag themed cupcakes.

i used a french vanilla boxed cupcake mix and added red, white, and blue sprinkles.

vanilla butter cream frosting

1 cup butter at room temperature

2 lb powdered sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla

about 6 tablespoons milk

red and blue food dye

cream butter and half of the powdered sugar till light and fluffy.  add vanilla, 2 tablespoons milk and a third of the powdered sugar. alternate milk and sugar.  be careful with the milk if y'all are adding food dye.  it needs to be a little thicker at this point.  separate the frosting into 3 bowls and add red to one bowl and blue to another. 

it is better to make the frosting ahead of time and let it sit for a bit.  the red looks pink at first and will darken up sitting a couple hours in the fridge.  remember to take it out, let it come to almost room temperature, and mix it up again before frosting the cupcakes.

we tried a a dye spray on a few cupcakes to see how it would work.  my girlies said it looks better in the picture then on the real cupcakes. then my oldest said 'maybe the picture is air brushed' hahaha an airbrushed spray dye picture..... teen humor :)

i love how we ended up with a few faces and union jacks in the batch.