Happy Memorial Day to you. Remember that Memorial Day is not just about bbq's and parties and sales. It's a day to honor those that have died while serving our country. There's no way the fallen soldiers can know how much we appreciate their service but supporting the family members left behind is a wonderful way to honor them.
So in the spirit of honoring American soldiers, this weekend, I decided to make some patriotic cupcakes for our church potluck. They didn't turn out quite as impressively as I had imagined, but people still seemed to enjoy them. And this blog post is more instructional and helpful than my previous blogs so it's all good.
This was the finished product with the colors slightly altered by my photoediting app. The best app, by the way, is Snapseed. I highly recommend it.
The decorating design was simple but the fun was inside the cupcake.
Unfortunately the red turned out to be rather pink once they were baked. I went through A LOT of food coloring for these cupcakes. It seemed that no matter how much coloring I added, it hardly changed anything!
Anyway, I wanted to use a very white cake batter rather than something yellowy, so I chose King Arthur's Tender White Cake recipe. Unfortunately, it wasn't very tender and not the best batter to use for a tri-colored cupcakes. But that was also my fault, not King Arthur's fault.
When I started making it, it was really thick, like a cookie dough and I was worried it wouldn't work.
But once I added the milk, it was WAY too runny.
I've used runny batters before and they do turn out just fine once they're baked. But because I needed to scoop different colors of batter, I needed it thicker, so I ended up adding about 2 extra cups of flour! That's a heck of a lot of extra flour! I should have added a bit more sugar but I didn't. So they didn't turn out very sweet or very tender, but more like a soft cookie. Some people actually preferred that. Whatever.
The recipe called for both vanilla and almond extract. Very tasty. I love making homemade vanilla extract. It's super easy and of a superior quality. It takes a few months to sit but it's worth it. I make large quantities at once (notice my large bottle) and when I'm on my last bottle, I make some more so it will be ready when I need it. Ingredients required: vodka and vanilla beans. Easy.
I need to throw in some pics of my chef apprentice cause she's too stinkin' cute. She made sure that Little Pup was working with her and she would give him instructions as she worked. Who wouldn't love baking with a helper like this?
My kids know that I'm a freak about messes and crumbs all over and whatnot. But they've also heard me say, "It's okay to make a mess when you're baking." And so when my daughter poured in the milk and it started dripping, my initial reaction was to clean it up quickly, but she smiled sweetly and said, "It's okay, Mommy. It's okay to make a mess when you're baking." So I actually left the mess on the counter. Those who know me can now gasp in shock. But it's true. Baking can get messy with the drippy eggs, the milk, and flour that spurts out of the mixer when the kids accidentally turn it on too high. But focusing on keeping it tidy kind of takes the fun out of the moment. So I've decided to just relax a little. And now I only have a little bit of anxiety as I see the messes accumulate...
I doubled the recipe and it still made only 32 cupcakes so this is all the batter I ended up with. I colored each bowl and then scooped one scoopful of each batter into the cupcake liners.
You could layer the colors (which actually might have been even more awesome) or you can scoop into different "corners" of the round liner. I put the white on top so that it wouldn't clash with the layer of blue frosting I put on top.
I don't have any tested recommendations for how to make the red look less like pink. But I think it may have something to do with the kind of food coloring I used. I prefer to use a thick gel-based food coloring but that option kind of slipped my mind this time.
For educational purposes, here's a brief breakdown of the different food coloring I use:
These are cheaper colors, water based and very weak (which is why I said "cheap" and not "cost-effective). But they're also super easy to use, especially for drinks or thin frosting. I used almost an entire bottle of this stuff for the batter before I gave up and moved on to my Liquid Dye.
This is liquid dye, found at craft stores and baking stores. It's thicker so it won't change the consistency of your recipe as much. These are also easy to work with but a little more costly.
Gel-based dyes are the best. Super concentrated. They're absolutely my favorite and what I should have used. I just got distracted by the easy drip dye and kind of forgot about it. In my defense, it's been a long time since I've been baking. Anyway, these are the most pricey, but they last a very long time cause you only need a tiny bit of the gel. I use these when dying fondant because using the liquid dyes will change the consistency of the fondant and it will become gummy and unusable.
So if you attempt to make these colorful cupcakes, use the right type of food coloring so your red cake doesn't turn out pink. And remember, it's okay to make a mess when you're baking.
