Hi friends! Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I know this year was not ideal with a global pandemic going on, but I hope you found away to celebrate even a bit.
Brandon and I spent 4th of July at home with Spot and Snowball. However, we made the best of it and with everything going on I have been finding myself more and more back in the kitchen. Years ago, I use to bake a lot more and through the years I have fallen away from it and lately I have been finding myself getting back to it because it has been helping me get more creative and bringing me a bit of joy. I always find that when I am creating something from the heart it helps with my anxiety and brings me tons of joy so there is no better time than now to get back to baking. I knew a few weeks back with 4th of July around the corner I would want to bake something for the occasion. After thinking for a bit I decided to go back to one of my old creations that I made back in college, Snow Cone Cupcakes.
I had a lovely time making these, I hope you give the below recipe a try and let me know what you think.
Cupcake Ingredients
- 2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 4 egg whites
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 2/3 cup salted butter, softened
- three bowls
- red and blue liquid food coloring
- three piping bags
- twist ties
- baking cups
Preheat oven to 350 degrees .
Sift flour, sugar and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and then mix on low.
In another bowl, stir together egg whites, milk and vanilla.
Add softened butter to the flour mixture and mix it together. While the butter is combining slowly add the milk mixture in and mix until completely combined.
Divide the batter evenly into three bowls. Add about 40 drops of red food coloring into one bowl and stir together till the color is mixed throughly. Repeat with the blue food coloring and the second bowl, leave the third bowl white.
Stand piping bags in tall glasses for support and spoon the batter into bags (be sure not to over fill, otherwise it will spill over the top while you are pipping). Tie of the ends of the bags with twist ties.
Cut the ends off the pipping bags and slowly start pipping the batter into the baking cups. You could do all three colors at the same time, however I found it much easier to pipe one color at a time and I started with red, followed by white, then blue.
Fill the cups a little more than halfway, then bake for 16-18 minutes or until done.
Remove and set the cupcakes aside to cool completely before frosting the cupcakes. This recipe makes about 16 cupcakes.
Frosting Ingredients
- 1 cup of butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 4 cups of confectioner’s sugar
- 4 teaspoons of milk
- red and blue food coloring
- red, white, and blue sugar crystals
- small spoons
Beat butter and vanilla together. Once mixed throughly, add sugar slowly. Continue to beat until combined.
Scrape the sides of the bowl and add milk. Mix until smooth and creamy.
Divide the frosting into three bowls evenly. Tint one bowl with a few drops of the red food coloring and the second with blue (I used about 6 drops), so that when you cover the frosting in sugar crystals, there isn’t white frosting showing.
Follow the same steps as the above to fill the pipping bags.
Pipe white frosting down the center of the cupcake, lining up somewhat with the white cake section. You can use the knife to pull the frosting to the edge of the cupcake if necessary.
Sprinkle white sugar crystals on to the frosting, letting the excess fall into a bowl underneath. You can gently press the cupcake into the fallen sugar crystals to fill in any uncoated sections.
Repeat with the red frosting followed by red crystal sugar. Feel free to use a knife to shape the frosting when necessary. Follow with blue frosting and blue sugar crystals as well.
Finally, you can sprinkle on more white sugar crystals over the cupcake to give it more of an icier look if you like. Finish it off with adding a spoon right into the frosting.
