4th of July Cupcakes

These were the fun fun fun cupcakes I made for, well obviously, July 4th. My aunt Anita gave me these cool little things to make two-color/flavor cupcakes (called Batter Babies) and I've been dying to try them out, so I thought a holiday that focuses on a set of specific colors would be appropriate :-)

I just made a box french vanilla cake mix, but added to it a package of dry french vanilla pudding mix for extra moisture. Then, I divided the batter into two separate bowls and dyed one red and one blue. It took quite a bit of food coloring (though not nearly as much as the green velvet balls!).

Popped in the batter babies, which struggled a bit to stand upright, but I finally got them to balance. It was a little tedious and time consuming, but had to add each color separately, being careful not to knock over the dividers or spill a color into the wrong half. And, I only had 6 dividers, so I could only do a half of a pan at a time.

Bake according to the box mix directions, let cool, and frost. I didn't have time or energy to do homemade frosting, so I cheated and used a tub of pre-made cream cheese frosting. I still loaded it into my frosting piper thingamajig and did my best to apply the frosting in the shape of white stars on the tops of the red and blue cupcakes. 

Finally, sprinkled the tops with both red (strawberry) and blue (blue raspberry) Pop Rocks, which by the way took forever to find - I went to 5 different grocery/convenience stores with no luck and finally had to get them at the over-priced candy store in the mall. 

It's a fireworks party in your mouth!! Happy Independence Day!!