Independence Day Treats

I made some goodies for our neighbor's 4th of July party this year. They ordered two dozen cupcakes and told me to do whatever I'd like :) So, I made a dozen margarita cupcakes (they do like to party), and a dozen of these colorful cuppies. These are super simple to make, and so much fun!

To create the tye-dye effect, divide your batter into as many portions as colors you want, and get dyeing. Then get out some spoons, and start dropping batter into liners! These would be really fun cupcakes to make with kids (as long as you don't mind a little mess) because they could have fun playing the with batter, and the process would go more quickly with some helping hands! For the best color swirls, don't drop all the batter of each color in at once, or you'll end up with something more like color blocks. I mean, unless that's what you're going for.

Anyway...remember the Disneyland cake I made for my friend? You should, it was only the last post before this one. So, like I said, I had a whole extra tier left over. I had already baked the cake and frosted it in buttercream, so I thought I may as well practice my fondant application, and I went ahead and covered it in fondant. Then I thought, oh my goodness, what am I going to do with a 5-inch tall 12-inch cake?? That is a lot of cake, and there are only two of us! The thought of wasting all that cake was painful to me, so again, I thought I may as well practice my decorating, and I turned it into a pretty red, white, and blue cake to take to our neighbor's party.

This was really easy and quick, and it came out pretty cute! Tiny dark blue stars around the base, red stripes, and white stars on top. I hand-cut some letters to make "USA" on top:

The first thing my husband said to me when he saw the picture was that I should have had 13 stars. Totally wasn't even thinking about that. Anyway, after this comment, he expressed the appropriate admiration ;) Since they weren't expecting a cake, our friends were quite surprised and pleased! Unfortunately, the hubby and I were sitting in a fireworks booth all day, so we didn't get to sample any :( But I'm sure it was awesome ;)