I love Red, White and Blue. Modern Red, White and Blue. Old Country Red, White and Blue. I love it all. My kitchen is red white and blue too. I’m completely out-of-control to be honest.

When my 3 year old woke up and asked to make cupcakes, I wanted to get creative. She LOVES color. I think she lives in Emerald City. I decided to make some patriotic cupcakes (This is the Patriotic Baker blog..and there hasn’t been much patriotic cooking or baking going on around here).

I made a vanilla cupcake (Ming’s Vanilla cupcake) then split the batter into three equal parts. Using Gel food coloring I made one bowl red and one bowl blue. Gel food coloring is wonderful. It creates bright vibrant colors and a tiny bit goes a long, long way. I prefer it to traditional food coloring. Then I put 1 Tablespoon layers into my cupcake liners and baked for 20 minutes.

I am ridiculously happy with the outcome. So happy, that I ate 3 before the frosting was done (I have two kids which equals an eight hour work out a day so…3 is energy food, haha). I made a creamy white vanilla frosting. I’m not a fan of buttercream…at.all. In fact I really truly do not like it whatsoever, but the thing about frosting..it needs something to hold it together so it needs some type of fat. Butter or Shortening. Shortening frostings tend to make me gag so 7 times out of 10, I use butter.

The recipe goes something like this:

1/2 cup granulated sugar (I’m not a huge fan of confectioners sugar and I prefer granulated for frostings, but that doesn’t happen very often).

2 large egg whites

pinch of salt

Mix these three ingredients together in a heat proof bowl and set over simmering water. Wisk until it gets a bit thicker and marshmallowy, but not too thick…medium thick (HAHA…WTH?! right?). Take off simmering water and either place bowl under your stand mixer with wisk attachment or use a hand beater with a wisk attached.

12 T butter (unsalted) cut into 1 T pieces. Start adding one at a time until frosting is smooooooth.

1/2 tsp vanilla. Add this after butter is beat in and it’s smooooth.

HA! Frosting. Then do whatever you want with it. Pipe it. Spread it. Get it on those cupcakes however you wish (once they are cool, of course). If you want to sprinkle them, sprinkle away!

Of course, I made these and then my three year old only wanted to eat Saltines. Makes sense. These are the best cupcakes I’ve made in a couple months. They are simple but delicious.