With a great party day coming up soon here’s a cupcake collection that you’ll be proud to put together.

With 50 States in the Union you may want to produce 50 cupcakes.

Cake mixture for 50 cupcakes (white)

4 1/2 cups of flour 4 1/2 sticks of butter 2 1/4 cups of sugar 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder 3 eggs

• Mix together the “dry” ingredients by sifting them into a large bowl twice, so they are very well mixed together.Now add your “wet” ingredients and mix together until you have a glossy “wet paint” look to the batter with no lumps or air bubbles in it.
• (Check out our 8 Tips and Tricks For The Best Cupcakes for more info on the best way to cook cupcakes).
• Line your cupcake tray with your cupcake liners and pour in your batter using a ladle or a jug with a spout.
• Bake at 325 - 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Now, as most cupcake trays have 12 “cups” you will need to do 5 separate “bakes” to make your 50 cupcakes.

OK we have the “white” coloring of the six white stripes in the American Flag in the cupcake body. Now we need to frost them with a red frosting to symbolize the 7 red stripes.

Easy Frosting Recipe:  Sometimes adding food coloring to frosting results in a bitter taste and for something as sweet as cupcakes bitter ness just will not do! This easy “cheat” will allow you to add the food coloring but avoid the bitterness.

• Get whatever type of Royal Icing you prefer (with egg white or with meringue powder).
• Add enough cherry, pomegranate or strawberry juice to the icing to make it a nice pink color.
• Add your food coloring (I’d suggest the paste kind as that doesn’t alter the consistency of the Royal icing). Add only enough food coloring to change the icing to a deep pink.
• Cover the bowl and place in your refrigerator for at least 24 hours..preferably 48 hours.

The icing will darken to a nice, deep red over this time and the juice will stop that bitter food coloring coming through.

OK.. Red and White is now covered. For the stars you could get all fancy and use the Royal icing with blueberry juice (for the blue background of the Union) and then just white Royal icing for the stars themselves but why not make it easy and look at these funky stars available from Partyworks.  They’ll both finish off the cupcake and add that “Old Glory” touch to your efforts.

There you have it.. a great cupcake celebration of Thanksgiving Day!

Get baking and have a great holiday!