This year I actually did something with the inside of the cupcake and made layered cupcakes from Taste of Home. My niece, Dory, helped me with the batter and is my kind of girl licking up the leftovers. They didn't turn out as vivid as I wanted, but I heard the trick is to use the gel coloring instead of regular food coloring. Lesson learned.
Ingredients
- 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) white cake mix
- 1/2 teaspoon blue food coloring
- 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring
- 1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting
- Red, white and blue sprinkles
Directions
- Prepare cake batter according to package directions.
- In a small bowl, combine 1-1/3 cups batter and blue food coloring. In another bowl, combine 1-1/3 cups batter and red food coloring. Leave remaining batter plain.
- Fill paper-lined muffin cups with 2 tablespoons red batter, 2 tablespoons plain batter and 2 tablespoons blue batter. Bake at 350° for 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Frost with vanilla frosting; decorate with sprinkles. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.
Obviously, I used blueberries for my stars and I used Twizzlers pull and peel strips for the red stripes. It was a little tedious to cut the stripes but well worth it to see how cute they turned out. The kids were eyeing them asking when they could have them. By the way, if you ever need to get a kid to pose for a picture, put a cupcake in front of their face and dangle it like a carrot. These cupcakes were magic for getting smiles for the camera! I just need to start carrying spare cupcakes with me to get those shots when my boys are sick and tired of smiling for the camera.
 |  |
 |  |
The best part for all my labor? My taste-tester faces, of course!
