How to make your Fourth of July Sweeter
Although, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth… I really do love baking. And I think that every holiday can include a baked good, no matter what level of baking you are!
In honor of the Fourth of July, I’d share a few of my favorite "patriotic" recipes to bake/make no matter your skill set!
Fresh Fruit and Mascarpone Pie With Gluten-Free Crust
The first is a fairly easy and (GLUTEN-FREE) tarte recipe I found a few years ago in the Washington Post. I can’t speak highly enough of it, it has a summer-y flavor and isn’t too heavy. Perfect for summer barbecues! It’s a great thing to bring along for any of your gluten-intolerant friends and doesn’t look like it’s something made to accommodate a food allergy, but instead something to WOW all your guests!
Vanilla Fireworks Cupcakes
I make these almost every year… they are super easy to bake and decorate! Sometimes I make them from scratch, using my favorite Magnolia Bakery recipe for the cupcake and frosting. If I’m in a pinch making them someplace I don’t have access to all the ingredients (insert, at a beach house over the holiday), I’ll easy it out and use a box of vanilla cake batter and a can of frosting. I always love Betty Crocker as my go-to shortcut brand (see my previous apple pie post, another good Fourth of July treat).
What you’ll need to make the “Fireworks” is the following:
- Red and Blue food coloring
- Red and Blue sprinkles or other decorations (like stars)
To make these guys, follow your recipe as directed. Right before pouring batter into cupcake liners, separate batter into three bowls. Add red coloring to one bowl and blue to another bowl, leave the third as-is.
When filling cupcake liners you always want to make sure to fill them about ¾ full. What you will basically be doing for these is alternating red, white and blue layers to get to the ¾. It doesn’t need to be precise, I usually take a large spoonful of each and place them into the liner and once you do one of each red, white and blue layer it comes to about ¾ full.
Once they bake and you cut into them you’ll see the super fun layers between the cupcakes!
To finish them off, just top with frosting and sprinkles. To make the tri-colored frosting like I did, separate the frosting into three bowls (like with your batter) add coloring to each. Take your piping bag and carefully spoon frosting into one bag, layering the frostings length-wise, so that the colors are separated.
Patriotic Ice Cream Sandwiches
This is really the easiest dessert you could possibly make. All you need:
- Red, white and blue sprinkles (or some variation of them)
- Ice cream sandwiches
Dip sides of sandwiches in sprinkles and serve (fairly quickly to prevent melting).
How easy and pretty was that?
As I said above, desserts don’t have to be hard to make. Sometimes it’s just in the details! Tag me in your Fourth of July treats so I can see what you were all up to using the #newyorkinheels or @newyorkinheels.
Happy and Safe Fourth! X
