Happy 4th!

While spending some quality time with my new obsession, Pinterest, I found this irresistibly cute recipe and project! Jason and I had plans to spend some time with friends over the holiday weekend therefore I used it as an excuse to try out this recipe. Turns out everyone at the party loved the patriotic cupcakes as much as me. I hope that you'll find these treats an inspiration for your next party regardless of the time of the year.

Ingredients

• Jars (I used 1/2 pint canning jars)
• 1 Vanilla cake mix (from a box or from scratch)
• Frosting (from a can or homemade)

Directions

Prepare the batter of your favorite vanilla cake (from a box or from scratch). Divide the batter as equally as possible into three bowls. Color one bowl of batter red, and one blue (using concentrated gel coloring). The final bowl will remain uncolored. Prepare 3- 9″ cake pans (round or square) by greasing the pan lightly (with butter or oil), and lining with parchment paper. Fill pans with batter. Bake cakes according to recipe instructions.

Once baked, cool cakes completely. Remove cakes from pans, and level cakes as needed. Then, use a 2″ round cookie cutter to cut out circles of cake. Prepare a batch of frosting and fill a piping bag fitted with a large round or star tip. Layer cake and frosting as shown above (blue cake, a little frosting, white cake, a little frosting, red cake, a nice swirl of frosting). Top with festive sprinkles.

My edits: I've never made a cake from scratch so I was hesitant to go down that road when making food for others but I hope to learn soon. Therefore I used a boxed cake as well as a jar of frosting. Judge away :)