4th of July Goodies!

I fully intended on posting this on July 3rd (the day I made these yummy snacks), but the excitement of the 4th of July Weekend (which I love) and a date that night resulted in me not getting a post completed. So, here is a sampling of the yummy 4th of July goodies I made for family and friends to enjoy at the lake!

Red,White, and Blue Strawberries
As I've said before, I absolutely love strawberries. They've been my favorite fruit since forever and I love them in most anything: salads, desserts, snacks, it doesn't matter! One of my best friends, Melissa, showed me this idea and we decided they were too cute to pass up!
You need:
Strawberries
White Chocolate Chips
Crisco
Sugar
Blue Food Coloring

Preparation
1. Wash the strawberries and dry them off. Drying them off is important because it allows the chocolate to actually stick to the strawberries.
2. To make the granulated sugar blue, place sugar into a Ziploc bag and add drops of blue food coloring until your desired color is reached.  It helps if you drip the food coloring onto the side of the Ziploc instead of onto the sugar. Then, work the color throughout the sugar by kneading the closed bag with your hands. Place the colored sugar into a bowl.
3. In a double boiler (or a sauce pan on low heat), combine 1 tablespoon of Crisco per cup of White Chocolate chips.  The Crisco helps the chocolate chips to stay creamy enough to dip the strawberries in.  The first batch I made didn't turn out as pretty because I didn't use enough Crisco, thinking it was unnecessary--this made the chocolate lumpy and the dipping process not as easy. Let the chocolate chips and the Crisco melt together, stirring pretty continuously.
4. Dip the strawberries into the melted white chocolate (holding onto the stem), then immediately dip the bottom tip into the blue sugar. Repeat until you run out of strawberries (or chocolate!).

These were some of the first done...they aren't as pretty as the ones at the end, but of course, I forgot to take pictures of the pretty ones!

Red, White, and Blue Cupcakes
I wanted to make cupcakes in the shape of a flag after seeing them done in a magazine (I have no idea which one). I searched the internet for a made from scratch cupcake recipe, but I'm still in the process of tweaking it so it is exactly the taste I want. They turned out fine, but were nothing to write home about just yet...here's a picture of the finished product!