Fourth of July is a wonderful time to get together with friends and family, thankful for the country that we as Americans call home. The get-togethers usually consist of outdoor barbecues where everyone pitches in and brings something to the party. And I'm all for that. As someone who loves to bake, one of my go-to contributions is cupcakes. They're easily portable, already in individual servings, and can be decorated to reflect just about any occasion you can think of. Hence, my 4th of July cupcakes for this year.


Not only are these cupcakes one of the easiest desserts to make, they are also easy on the wallet. I started off with cupcake liners, mini flag cupcake toppers and red, white and blue straws from the Dollar Tree. Cost: $2.00.


Then I picked up a bag of Pillsbury cupcake mix in aqua blue (cost: $1.00) and some Pillsbury vanilla icing (cost: $1.00).


Last but not least I bought some candy "pearls" in red and blue to add some more color. Cost: $1.00 each. (I already had the white pearls seen here, but later determined that the cupcakes looked pretty great without them!) So, I just followed the ridiculously simple package instructions on the cupcake mix package, iced them and decorated them, and voila.


I'm no professional baker, but I really do love it when I can turn an easy recipe into something that looks a bit more "professional." And I think I made that happen with these 4th of July cupcakes!





For a truly Americana feeling I had to include some of my vintage milk bottles filled with blue soda! For that, I used one bottle of Fanta berry flavor, cost: $1.00.


I also placed the cupcakes on the glass plate that goes with one of my vintage cake carriers. I thought the cupcake liners were perfect, and I loved their (somewhat psychedelic) patriotic pattern!


You can see from above that I did try to make the icing a bit more "fancy" by putting it in a piping bag and piping it on, rather than just spreading it on with a knife. The first time I did this I was a bit leery of how it would turn out, but now I do it all the time with great results.



You can buy cheap piping kits in the Dollar Tree, grocery store, craft stores, etc. Some kits can be pricey, though, so you have to watch out for that! My cost from Dollar Tree: $1.00







I also put together a quick 4th of July bunting for the backdrop of this photo shoot. I will be sharing how I did it in a future post.

So, the total cost for this dessert was $8.00. That's 66 cents per cupcake. Most of what I purchased still has some left (minus the the cake mix and the soda) so I think it's a win-win. Do I ever bake from scratch? Sometimes. Is it hard to find time for that? Yes. But as I said after making my red velvet cupcakes, it doesn't have to be made from scratch for it to be good. I think the exact same amount of love goes in, no matter what.

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If you liked this post, you might also like these

 cupcake dessert posts as well.

Easy Churro Cupcakes 

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Kathleen