Red, White, and Blue Cupcakes served in wine glasses

Here is a quick and easy way to dress up a simple homemade or store-bought cupcake for a party.

Just grab some plastic wine glasses, goblets, or champagne flutes and fill them with some candy that either matches your cupcakes or fits your party theme, then set the cupcake on top.

You can make these festive treats for any holiday or occasion by using different colored candies and cupcakes.

If you are hosting a party and don't have a nice cupcake display, or you are wanting to bring cupcakes to an event and you don't want to have to worry about getting your cupcake display back, this is a great alternative.

You could even wrap these up in some clear cellophane and tie them with some ribbon. Imagine showing up at a bake sale with 24 of these. They would be a huge hit.

So, let's make some cupcakes.

Ingredients

cake mix - I used a white cake mix so I could add some sprinkles inside my cupcakes but any cake mix will work fine.

eggs (egg whites), oil, and water as listed on the cake mix box

red, white, and blue jimmies - These will be mixed into the white cake batter.

frosting - To make these 4th of July cupcakes I topped with cupcakes with a big swirl of white frosting. You can find my homemade white frosting recipe on my Panda Cake post. If you use store-bought frosting, be sure it is thick enough to hold its shape nicely. Wilton's frosting works great.

red, white, and blue star sprinkles - I sprinkle the stars over my frosted cupcakes

red, white, and blue M&M's or other candies to fill the plastic wine glasses like Sixlets, Skittles, or jelly beans

Supplies

4th of July cupcake wrappers - I used tin foil cupcake wrappers and they looked great on the outside of my cupcakes.

cupcake pans - Most cupcake mixes make 20-24 cupcakes so you may need to use 2 pans.

plastic wine glasses - Be sure to buy wine glasses that are large enough to hold a cupcake. 5.5-ounce to 6-ounce wine glasses work great.

You can find the supplies you need to make these cupcakes on Amazon.com. I earn a small commission when you use the links below at NO extra cost to you.

Party Essentials Disposable...Shop on Amazon  MY M&M'S Freedom Custom M&M...Shop on Amazon M&M's Red Milk Chocolate Ca...Shop on Amazon
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Make red, white, and blue cake batter.

Make the cake batter according to the instructions on the box. You could doctor it up by adding 3 tablespoons of sour cream and 3 tablespoons of powdered instant vanilla or white chocolate pudding and using milk instead of water. That's my favorite way to make a delicious cake from a mix.

To make the Funfetti-style cupcakes, stir in some red and blue (or red, white, and blue) jimmies into the cake batter.

Scoop equal amounts of batter into cupcake liners in cupcake pans and bake according to the package instructions.

Frost cupcakes and add sprinkles.

Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, you can add a big swirl of white frosting on top.

Then, sprinkle on red, white, and blue star-shaped sprinkles.

NOTE: Frosting begins to crust over rather quickly, so add the sprinkles as you are frosting the cupcakes so it doesn't dry out so much that the sprinkles won't stick.

Fill plastic wine glasses with candy.

Fill your plastic wine glasses with red, white, and blue M&M's so that you have just enough room on top for a cupcake. You'll need to fill them at least halfway and possibly a little more.

The cupcake needs to be near the top of the glass so that you can easily remove it from the wine glass.

Red, White, and Blue M&M's

During the summer months, you can often find bags of the three color M&M's mixed together, but if you can't, you can purchase bags of the individual colored M&M's to add to these desserts.

You can fill your wine glasses with just about any candy. These Candy Corn Cupcakes are perfect for Halloween or Thanksgiving. I topped white cupcakes with a multi-colored swirl of yellow, orange, and white frosting.

If you feel the full-size cupcakes and glasses filled with candy are just too much, make them smaller. You can bake mini cupcakes and put them in candy-filled shot glasses. They look just as cute and are perfect for kid's parties.

It's harder to find mini candy that is color-specific but there are plenty of tiny candies that will fit in the shot glasses like Nerds, Mini M&M's, and Mini Reese's Pieces.

Related Recipes

4th of July Magic Bars

Gumdrop Stars

4th of July Cake

Check out all of my festive 4th of July Recipes.