July 4th Recipe: America's Cupcakes

Foil baking cups

Red food coloring

Blue food coloring

Sprinkles or star candy

White frosting (recipe below)

Cupcake Recipe:

2/3 cup butter, softened

1 ¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

½ teaspoon almond extract (you can use vanilla flavoring instead)

2 ½ cups self-rising flour

1 ¼ cups milk

Preheat oven to 350º.

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in almond extract. Add flour and milk alternately beating after each addition.

Spray foil baking cups with non-stick canola oil. Spoon cake mixture into baking cups. I used 1/8 cup in each. Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool. This mixture will make about 36 cupcakes.

Frosting:

2 lbs. powdered sugar

½ cup butter-flavored shortening (you can use plain shortening)

8 Tablespoons water

Mix powdered sugar and shortening using a mixer. It's fine if it doesn't mix well. Add water 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing while adding the water. Do not let it get too thin.

Separate frosting into three bowls. You will only need ¼ of the frosting for the blue cupcakes. Add blue food coloring to one bowl until desired tint. Add red to another and leave one white. Frost 4 cupcakes blue, 16 cupcakes red and 10 white.

Place the blue cupcakes in left corner of rectangular serving dish (I covered a piece of cardboard with foil, but you can use other materials to cover cardboard). Beside the first row of blue cupcakes, place 4 red cupcakes (you can make the flag as big as you like, this is what I used). Next row, white. Alternate red and white as you go. You can add sprinkles or star candies to the top of the blue cupcakes.