Fourth of July Firecrackers and Flag Cake

These cupcakes were so fun to make!! I had seen the recipe on the Food and Family website and knew this was something I had to make...especially because they're cupcakes!!! (Which is what I'm all about) I just started out with a box of yellow cake mix, and made the cake according to the directions on the box, then used whipped cream for the frosting. For the topping I colored flaked coconut and used licorice sticks as the wick of the "firecrackers". I have never had a cupcake or cake that has used whipped cream as the frosting. I must say I was quite skeptical at first, because I love my frostings, but I actually really enjoyed the whipped cream. It was nice and light, which went very well with the airy cake. Of course when I have airy, light tasting cake, I always convince myself that their lightness makes them "healthy" or "not as heavy" so I ended up eating a few too many cupcakes, but hey it's Fourth of July right...I'm celebrating the birth of my country :)

I absolutely loved this cake!!! This was my flag cake, which I also made out of a yellow cake mix and used vanilla frosting to frost the cake. It was so funny when I had made this, because I gave away the cupcakes to my neighbors and made the cake for my family and I, which consisted of me, Dad and Mom. I think I chose the wrong items to give away, because it would've made much more sense for me to keep the cupcakes and give away the entirely huge flag cake to my neighbors who had their entire family over for the Fourth of July. But I guess you live and learn right?! None the less this cake was delicious, I mean how could it not be? The only hard part is trying to get a bite of cake that has both the blueberries and the strawberry. Needless to say we solved that problem by performing surgery on this beautiful cake!! We cut the cake up into small chunks so that we could each have a sampling of the fruit. My only regret about this cake, which is something I'm still kicking myself for, is not putting it in the fridge!! I know, so stupid. I left the damn cake out over night, opened it up in the morning and the fruit had gone bad :0( Never a fun time to have to throw away an entire cake.