Difficulty: Medium
No 4th of July celebration is complete without a Flag Cake (or other party cakes), but how about putting a new twist on that old tradition by making a Mini-Cupcake Flag? Cupcakes are always popular, and this red and white and blue Mini-Cupcake Flag will be a great way to declare your Independence!
What you'll need
- mini-cupcake pan
- 1 box cake mix or your favorite cake recipe
- 4 cups decorator icing
- 3 pastry bags
- Wilton #21 decorator tip
- Wilton #12 decorator tip
- mini-cupcake cups
- white star sprinkles
- red food coloring
- blue food coloring
- cake foil wrap
- 1 large bar pan or sheet of cardboard for the base
You can adapt this cupcake flag to fit any size base, depending on the size of the crowd you are going to feed.
How to make it
Bake the mini-cupcakes, according to the package instructions. I used 88 mini-cupcakes for this cake, but this recipe is very flexible. You can make your Mini-Cupcake Flag larger or smaller, depending on your needs. 1 box cake mix will make plenty of mini-cupcakes for this project.
While the cupcakes are cooling, cover your bar pan, or sheet of cardboard with cake foil. Wrap it across the top, and tape the edges of the foil to the bottom of the pan (or cardboard) to hold it in place.
Once your mini-cupcakes have baked and cooled, lay them out in rows to create a rectangle. I made 8 rows that were 11 cupcakes wide.
Before frosting anything, plan out how you are going to create your stars and stripes. The stars will go in the upper-right corner. I used 5 cupcakes across (wide) and 5 cupcakes down (long) to make my stars section.
Put a tiny dollop of icing on the bottom of each cupcake to hold it in place on the cake board.
Divide the remaining icing into thirds. You'll need between 1 to 1½ cups for each color.
Color your frosting: a. color 1 portion royal blue with your blue food coloring b. color 1 portion red with your red icing c. leave the last portion white
Decorate the blue cupcakes with the Wilton #12 decorating tip and a pastry bag. Add the blue icing to the bag after you put the tip into the end. Then gently squeeze the icing onto the cupcakes in a circular motion. If you want to size your cake like mine (in the photos) ice the first 5 cupcakes on the left in the top 4 rows with the blue icing.
Top the blue cupcakes with white star sprinkles. Put 4 or 5 sprinkles on each mini-cupcake.
Ice every other row of the remaining cupcakes with the white icing, using a pastry bag and the Wilton # 21 decorator tip.
Use the same circular motion to ice the cupcakes.
Ice the remaining rows (using the same circular motion to ice each cupcake) with the red icing, a pastry bag, and the Wilton #21 decorator tip.
