Obligatory Fourth of July Inspired Cupcakes

As I'm sure many of you have guessed, or know first hand, I am not really the type of person to make cutesy things or themed things or anything that requires much craftiness. I applaud those that encompass these attributes but I'm just not like that. Putting a blueberry on a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting is about as far as I'm willing to go with an Independence Day theme. It's not so much laziness, or uncreativity as it is stubbornness and intolerance.

 For the 4th of July, Collin and his family, joined me, and my family down at my family's beach house in Cannon Beach Oregon. I felt immediately compelled to bake something tasty and something, ok with a bit of a reference to the 4th. But not too much. Having just slam dunked the red velvets 200 times over for the wedding last weekend and not being too sick of making them, I made one more batch and frosted them as normal with the cream cheese frosting. And to make it EXTRA festive, I plunked a cute little blueberry on them. My cleverness knows no bounds. They turned out pretty good though I think and even though they are simple and really not cleaver at all, I like them better that way. Simpleness is good. What did you expect? A perfectly hand-piped image of the american flag blowing in the breeze with the cream cheese frosting poking through making the stars and stripes? No way. I could suggest a blog or two where you would find something like that though.....

In all seriousness, if you've never made or had a red velvet, which is shocking to me (the eating part), please please make some or buy some and enjoy it. It really is fantastic.

Oh and I piped the frosting in a slightly different way this time. I had an epiphany while watching an add for a new cupcake show on TV (that's right....a show about cupcakes. Nice). There was a split second shot of them piping on frosting and I realized I need to start using a much bitter tip. A big round tip. I normally don't use a tip at all, just the screw piece at the end and didn't even realize I should use a bigger bag and a bigger tip. So I switched over and and am quite pleased with the results. 

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

I'm posting a ton of photos mainly because Collin did an extra beautiful job on these. Amazing.

Photos by Collin Monda