Red, White, and Blue Cupcakes!

What a great 4th of July week.  It started off with a visit on Sunday evening from our BFFs.  They were visiting from Montana and we got one evening with them.  We went out to dinner at the Marketplace and got to catch up.  Just like old times :-)  Then, on Tuesday, our other dear friends and their 3 kids came to visit from Ohio.  They stayed 2 nights.  On Tuesday, we had pizza at Fratelli's and then rode the surrey bikes at The Dogwood Junction (which was hilarious). On Wednesday, we went to New Life Ranch to see their fireworks.  We hadn't seen their whole family at once since our trip to Germany 5 years ago.  It was a great visit!  Since I knew they'd be bringing the kids, I decided to make some cupcakes!  In honor of the holiday, I made Triple Berry Cupcakes. 

The berries in the cupcake are blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries.

I made vanilla cakes that used my homemade vanilla and a real vanilla bean...   So good!

Once the batter was made, I added all the berries.  It's only 1/4 cup of each kind of berry, so the batter isn't overwhelmed with berries.  You have to be careful with fresh berries because the juice can alter the batter.  Once again, the recipe says that it makes 12 standard cupcakes, but I was able to make 21 cupcakes.  I frosted them with a vanilla butter cream frosting and garnished with fresh blueberries and a raspberry...a little red, white, and blue!

Reviews from the Peanut Gallery:  These were really good.  When our friends arrived, I told them to help themselves...  They liked them a lot too!  I'm usually not a huge "fruit in a cupcake" person, but these were great.  There was a really nice amount of fruit without being too much.  I would definitely make these again.