Hooray for the Red, White, & Blue Cupcakes!

Woot!  I had a good excuse to make more cupcakes!  We're had some family over for an Independence Day party and of course, I MUST bake cupcakes!

The Problem:  I was entranced by red, white, & blue star shaped sprinkles when I was at Country Kitchen shopping for the wedding cupcake supplies.  They forced me to put them in my basket.  And so did the matching cupcake liners. 

Don't you hate when inanimate objects mess with you?  Bait you?  Call out to you???  (oh my)

Anyway, ever since these two objects jumped into my shopping basket, I've been dreaming of swirls of fluffy, white frosting with red, white, & blue stars scattered strategically on top.  But what kind of cupcake?  Vanilla?  Mayybee …  Confetti?   Naw, too much going on with all those sprinkles.   Chocolate?  Hmmm …

On the other hand, for a 4th of July picnic-party-hoopla, berries are practically a requirement AND as a plus, berries do cooperate with the theme by being red and blue.   I could make the berry cupcakes again.  But the frosting is pink and talk about CLASH!  I suppose I could make the frosting become red, but then the star sprinkles wouldn't look good. 

The Solution:

Make the Carrot Cupcakes with the white cream cheese frosting in the patriotic cupcake liners with the star sprinkles … AND … something summery … like root beer float cupcakes!

Who says I don't have a cupcake problem???

Sadly, I was really disappointed in the root beer float cupcakes.  They were ok, but considering that the last cupcakes I made were proclaimed pretty much worldwide as being PERFECT (aka HEAVENLY) they probably didn't stand much of a chance. 

I used the recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens magazine, "Cupcakes 150 Sweet Recipes".  It needs some serious tweaking.  The cake did have a root beer flavor, but the texture was dense and dry.  The frosting was supposed to have a vanilla ice cream flavor - it did not.  But they were edible and cute and everyone liked them. 

So now I have two challenges:  First, I used my last box of Carrot Cake mix so I've got to come up with a knock out carrot cake recipe.  Second, I love the idea of the root beer float cupcakes so I'm going to FIX IT!