stars & stripes cupcakes

1) I ended not making any of the desserts I mentioned in my previous post, and.. 2) I cheated. I used a box mix. I had good intentions, it was a "box mix + ..." recipe. One of the +'s was 1 cup sour cream.. that I forgot to pick up while I was at the grocery store, and at 10:30 pm, I was not going back.. so, Duncan Hines Signature French Vanilla it is! Sorry, White Wedding Cupcakes. Next time.

I can say that the frosting was homemade!

Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (with an Irish twist!) 

via Savory Sweet Life

OK, using Irish Cream in cupcakes made to celebrate AMERICAN Independence is well not so patriotic, but oh so delicious!

The original ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened (ideal texture should be like ice cream)

3-4 cups of confectioner's sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla*

Up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream*

*In place of the vanilla and milk or heavy cream, I used about a tablespoon heavy cream + 2 tablespoons Irish Cream (I prefer Michael's Celtic Irish Cream)

**Note: I actually split the frosting into three separate bowls - 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick) per bowl, and adjusted the recipe accordingly - rather than making one large batch, so that I could make red, white, and blue frosting - which ended up being more like pink, cream, and blue..

First, beat butter for a few minutes with mixer. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar, and mix on lowest speed, until the sugar has been incorporated into the butter. With the mixer set on medium speed salt and heavy cream + Irish Cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add an additional tablespoon of either heavy cream or Irish cream, depending on how "boozy" you'd like your frosting.

I decided to make "Stars & Stripes" cupcakes. For the stripes, I used a rose tip to pipe three red wavy stripes. Then I used a small star tip to pipe the white stripes second, filling in the spaces left behind (I would have used another rose tip, but I only have one). For the stars, I used a larger star tip to make stars in rows, covering the entire cupcake. I topped each "star" cupcake with tiny pearl-like sprinkles.