4th of July Sparkler Cupcakes

When Deb, Sherri and I were were growing up, we would go on family water skiing vacations to Lake Powell every summer. We had several other families that joined us each year. There was always a boat, jet ski or inner tub available at all times. We could play as much as we wanted to all day long!

I remember my Dad would always pull me aside on the first day and tell me I didn’t have to ski, knee board, jet ski and go inner tubing all on the first day of our vacation. I never listened to him. I always did everything the first day. I played the minute we got on the lake right up to the minute we got off the lake. I usually had to spend half of the next day recovering on the shore. Oh to be young again. If I did that now I would be wiped out for the rest of my vacation! Who am I kidding? I couldn’t do that many water sports all day even if I wanted too!

Supplies

Store bought cupcakes
Colored chocolate candy melts
Ziploc bag
White Sugar Crystals
Scissors

Lay a piece of wax paper on a flat cookie sheet. Melt some colored chocolate candy melts in a bowl, pour melted chocolate into a zip lock bag. Snip off enough of the tip of ziplock bag to make a medium size hole. First draw a straight line that will go into the cupcake, then make the line into a squiggle. Sprinkle sugar crystals over the chocolate and allow to harden. Once the sparklers have hardened, carefully remove them from the wax paper and insert into store bought or homemade cupcakes.

If you don’t snip off a big enough tip of the ziplock bag, your sprinklers will be to thin and fragile. They will break when you try to lift them off the wax paper or when you try to push them into your cupcakes. Make them on the thicker side and you will be fine!

When we were done playing on the Lake, we spent the evening playing one of our favorite games called sardines. It’s basically hide and go seek backwards. One person hides, while the rest of the group counts to 100. Then everyone in the group goes and looks for the person who was hiding. The person who was hiding had to choose a place large enough to fit all the other people in. The goal of the game was to find the person hiding and join them. You didn’t want to end up the last person wandering around not knowing where everyone else is hiding. My Dad wasn’t a big camper so we stayed at a hotel called Wahweep Lodge. We usually had at least 10 kids when we played this game, so finding the perfect hiding spot was tricky.

One year I found THE perfect hiding place, a janitor’s closet. Several people wandered around for a good 30 minutes before finding the rest of us! The only thing that would have made that night better is if we had some of these Sparkler Cupcakes from Better Homes and Gardens to eat while we were waiting to be found! I love using chocolate cupcake toppers like these on store bought cupcakes, it’s a huge times saver with a great WOW factor! Look how cute my Valentine’s day chocolate cupcake toppers turned out. Oh yes……

This Pin Rocks!