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Yield: 26 mini cupcakes

# of Servings: 12

Method: Modified Creaming

Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients:

Cupcakes: 

1 ¾ cup (8 oz / 227 g) cake flour, sifted
1 ¾ tsp (.3 oz / 9 g) baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda

½ cup (4 oz / 113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup less 2 tbl (6.2 oz / 175 g) sugar

2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

2 egg whites
1 pinch salt
2 tbl (.9 oz / 26 g) sugar

 Topping:
1 recipe Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Blue food coloring, gel preferred, as needed
Red food coloring, gel preferred, as needed

Tools and equipment needed:

• 1 24-well mini muffin pan, or two 12-well mini muffin pans
• Mini muffin plan liners
• 1 (xx size) ice cream scoop
• 3 small plastic pastry bags
• 1 small basket weave pastry tip and coupler

Pre-recipe preparations:

• Place liners in the muffin tins.
• Preheat oven to 400°F.

Directions:

Cupcakes: 

1. Thoroughly whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.
2. In countertop mixer with paddle, or handheld mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, beat until smooth.
4. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternately with the sour cream in two parts, beginning and ending with the dry. Use a plastic spatula to scrape up from the bottom to ensure a well-blended batter. The batter will be thick.
5. In clean bowl, whip the egg whites with the salt until soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar and whip until just reaches firm meringue stage. Do not overwhip.
6. Stir ¼ of the whites into the batter to lighten before folding in the remaining egg whites, just until blended.
7. Scoop better to evenly fill the wells almost to the top.
8. Bake just until each cupcake is just firm to the touch and a cake tester comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 8 to 10 minutes.
9. Remove pan from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Gently remove the cupcakes and place on a cooling rack.
10. Bake remaining cupcake batter.

Finishing:

1. Separate the buttercream into three bowls. Color one bowl red and one blue by adding one or two drops of the food coloring into the bowl. Add additional drops as needed to achieve the desired shade of red and blue.
2. Fit a pastry bag with the basket weave tip and fill with red buttercream. Pipe a small bar across ⅓ of each cupcake.
3. Fit a fresh pastry bag with a clean basket weave tip and fill with white buttercream. Pipe a white basket weave line below the red one.
4. Complete the red, white, and blue design by piping a blue buttercream design on the bottom of each cupcake.
5. Store in the refrigerator, serve at room temperature on flat serving plate.