These 4th of July Cupcakes are the perfect red white and blue cupcakes. Easy to make homemade cupcakes, topped with red, white and blue homemade buttercream frosting. These cupcakes make for an awesome 4th of July dessert!

4th of July Cupcakes Recipe

4th of July is almost here and these cupcakes are perfect! They are actually perfect for any BBQ, party or family get together!

Of course I love everything about a summer holiday like the 4th of July when it comes to foods. We always make pasta salad, potato salad and something on the grill like hamburgers, hot dogs, or grilled kabobs but for me we need an amazing 4th of July dessert to celebrate with too!

These homemade red, white and blue cupcakes make the perfect 4th of July dessert (or any summer holiday dessert really) because you can make them ahead of time and then enjoy them while you are having fun with friends and family.

Looking for more red, white and blue recipes? Check these out!

4th of july cupcakes with red white and blue buttercream frosting

Variations of this recipe

You need to use a white frosting so you can color the frosting red and blue. If you want to change up the flavor from vanilla buttercream, use almond buttercream or marshmallow butter cream.

For this recipe I used my favorite vanilla cupcakes, but you can use any homemade cupcake flavor you want to, including Chocolate cupcakes, Strawberry Cupcakes, Red Velvet Cupcakes and Angel Food Cupcakes. If you are looking for more amazing cupcake flavors, be sure to check out all of our homemade cupcakes recipes.

Tips for Making the best cupcakes

Bring ingredients to room temperature. I like to set out all of my liquid ingredients for about an hour or two before I start the recipe to let them come up to room temperature.

Don’t over mix. Once you add your flour to the batter you need to make sure you don’t over mix the batter.

Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting. If you frost cupcakes while they are still warm then the frosting will melt.

Properly fill the piping bag with frosting. If you have never filled a pastry bag with frosting check out how to fill a pastry bag with frosting.

Pip frosting with a cupcake frosting swirl. If you have never made a cupcake frosting swirl, it is super easy to do. Check out how to make a frosting swirls on a cupcake to learn how.

4th of July Cupcakes Supplies

Large piping tip
Pastry bag
Homemade Cupcakes
Homemade Buttercream
Red and blue food coloring

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe Ingredients

self-rising flour
cake flour
granulated sugar
unsalted butter, at room temperature
large eggs
milk
vanilla extract

How to Make Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your cupcake pans with your choose of cupcake wrappers.

Place your self-rising flour, cake flour, and sugar in the bowl of your mixer. Mix them together for a minute or two until they are well combined.

Cut your butter into tablespoon pieces. Slowly add your butter into the flour mixture one piece at a time continue mixing until you have reached the texture of sand.

Pour half of your milk into the flour mixture and mix just until the milk is incorporated. Use your rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of your bowl. Add your remaining milk and the vanilla to your batter and mix until combined.

Slowly add in one egg at a time to the cake batter, making sure each egg is incorporated before adding the next egg.

Scoop the batter into the prepared cupcake pan, filling them 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the cake pans so the pan that was on the top rack is now on the bottom and the pan that was on the bottom is now on the top rack. Continue to bake for another 10-13 minute until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cupcake.

Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack until they have reached room temperature.

Easy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting Ingredients

Butter
Shortening
Vanilla Extract
Confectioners sugar
hot water

How to Make Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Place butter and shortening together in the bowl of your mixer. On medium speed mix them together until it is all creamed together.

Turn the mixer to the lowest setting and slowly add the powdered sugar.

Once all the powdered sugar has been added and mixed well add the vanilla extract and hot water(if you need to thin out the buttercream frosting)

Turn the mixer to medium-high speed and continue mixing until the frosting is light and fluffy.

How to Make 4th of July Cupcakes

Once your cupcakes are baked and cooled and your frosting is made it is time to put the cupcakes together.

Divide your buttercream into three parts.

Using food coloring, color one part blue and one part red. You can use 3 different piping bags or one and rinse it out between colors. Use a large pastry tip when prepping your pastry bags.

It is really easy to learn how to do a cupcake swirl following the simple directions here. You will not want to do a full swirl because you will be changing out the color as you go higher. The key is to use a piping tip with an opening as large as a dime.

Pipe the red buttercream in a single layer swirl on all the cupcakes.

Then pipe one layer of the white buttercream on top of the blue layer so it’s smaller than the red layer.

To finish pipe the red frosting on top of the white layer so it’s smaller than the white layer.

Looking for more summer recipes to go with this 4th of July Dessert? Check these out!