Vanilla

Red, White & Blue Cupcakes

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Happy 4th of July! This is a perfect treat to eat while sitting out enjoying the fireworks!

1 Box of White Cake Mix

3 Eggs

1/3 Cup OilRed, White & Blue Cupcakes

1/2 Cup Water

2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1/2 Cup Butter (Softened)

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

2-3 TBSP Milk

Blue & Red Food Coloring

White Cupcake Liners

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl add cake mix, eggs, water and oil.

Mix together until combined. Add 20 drops of red food coloring to the mix and stir.

Place your white cupcake liners inside the cupcake pan and fill each one with the red cake mixture about 1/2 full.

Bake for 18- 22 min. Let cupcakes cool for 20 min after baking.

In a separate bowl mix powdered sugar, softened butter and vanilla extract.

Add the milk one TBSP at a time until it becomes together with no lumps.

Next add 15- 20 drops of blue food coloring and stir the frosting until combined.

Take your red cupcake and top it with the blue frosting.

20-24 servings.

TIPS:

I know that this recipe is “in a box” but I also strive to take those things and turn them into something new. So I am keeping with my premise of “out of the box cooking” 🙂

With the food coloring, I used the regular liquid food coloring that you find anywhere at the store.

Make sure to add plenty of food coloring to the cake mix and frosting to get a dark and vibrant red and blue color, especially red! You don’t want pink cupcakes!

For the frosting, I ended up using x2 amount of vanilla (since I was using the artificial stuff.) If you do have the real bottles of vanilla stick to the 1 tsp.

When adding milk to the frosting add slowly and don’t worry if you need to add more to tone down sweetness or to make the frosting smoother. I ended up using a bit more to get a smooth texture.

I doubled the cupcake liners so that the white color would be represented, but you can just use one.

Take your cupcakes one step further and add decorations to the top. Maybe a flag, sprinkles, etc. Be imaginative and make it your own!

Banana Bread Muffins

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2 Cups Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda Banana Bread Muffins

1/4 tsp. Salt

1/2 Cup Butter (softened)

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

2 Eggs (beaten)

3-4 Large Ripe Bananas

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix flour, baking soda & salt together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream softened butter and brown sugar together. Then add vanilla and eggs. Lastly, mash the ripe bananas and sir into the batter.

Take your banana mixture and fold it into the dry ingredients.

Grease your muffin tins with non-stick spray and then fill each tin with batter, stopping when you fill them about half way.

Place muffin tins into the oven for about 15-18 min, until muffins are golden brown on the edges.

Tips:

When it comes to how much bananas to add I always use this as a rule of thumb, “If you have 3 large bananas, go for it. Less than 3, no. If you have 4 bananas, no matter the size.. go for it! ”

It is easier to leave out 1 stick of butter (which equals 1/2 cup) overnight to be room temp before you make the batter. However, if you are not planning ahead of time, just stick the butter into the microwave until it softens. Try not to completely melt the butter!

I like to use brown sugar for this recipe, but if you don’t have it on hand you can use granulated white sugar instead.

My secret to keep all the muffins the same size… Ice Cream Scoop! I have a set of 3 that come in three different sizes: small, medium & large. I used the medium size.