July 4th Cupcake Flag Cake
July 4th Cupcake Flag Cake
About this recipe:
This July 4th, up your dessert game and make this stellar, crowd-pleasing pull-apart cupcake flag cake. We made extra virgin olive oil lemon cupcakes and used freeze-dried blueberries and strawberries to naturally flavor the vanilla frosting and topped it with fresh blueberries, strawberries, and flaked coconut to represent Old Glory and her stars and stripes!Ingredients
For the Cupcakes:
- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup Kosterina Everyday Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 3/4 cup white sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 T vanilla paste
- Zest of 2 lemons
- 1 cup whole milk
- Standard size cupcake/muffin tins to hold 24 cupcakes
For the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups confectioners sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 2 cups dried coconut, for topping
For the Strawberry Frosting:
- Vanilla Frosting
- 1 1.2 oz bag Organic Natierra Freeze-Dried Strawberries
- 1 cup strawberries, de-stemmed and sliced thin, for topping
For the Blueberry Frosting:
- Vanilla frosting
- 1 1.2 oz bag Organic Natierra Freeze-Dried Blueberries
- 1/2 cup blueberries, rinsed and dried, for topping
- 1 cup white chocolate chips, for topping
Directions
For the Cupcakes:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the oil and sugar and mix on high speed for 5 minutes, until smooth and creamy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla and lemon zest.
- Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture, mixing on low.
- Add the milk and mix on low just to combine.
- Divide the batter to make 24 cupcakes and bake for 20 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.
- Allow to cool completely in the pan before removing and frosting.
For the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
- Combine butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer and mix on medium speed for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy, periodically scraping the bowl sides.
- Once the cupcakes are cooled, frost nine of them with the plain vanilla frosting.
- Separate remaining frosting into two bowls, roughly 2/3 in one bowl and 1/3 in the other.
For the Strawberry Frosting:
- Add the bag of Natierra freeze dried-strawberries to a small food processor and pulse into a fine powder, then add to the larger bowl of frosting and mix to combine.
- Frost nine of the cupcakes with the strawberry frosting.
For the Blueberry Frosting:
- Add the bag of Natierra freeze-dried blueberries to a small food processor and pulse into a fine powder, then add to the smaller bowl of frosting and mix to combine.
- Frost the last six cupcakes with the blueberry frosting.
For the Assembly:
- To make your flag, place the six blueberry cupcakes in two rows across the top left corner.This can’t be 3” by 2”...aren’t the cupcakes each more than 2”
- Line up three vanilla cupcakes alongside the top row of blueberry cupcakes
- Line up three strawberry cupcakes alongside the second row of blueberry cupcakes
- For the third row, line up six vanilla cupcakes.
- Line up the remaining six strawberry cupcakes to create the last row.
- Decorate the blueberry cupcakes with fresh blueberries and white chocolate chips as “stars.”
- Sprinkle dried coconut on the vanilla frosted cupcakes.
- Add sliced strawberries in a line across the strawberry cupcakes. Enjoy!
