Preheat oven to 350*. In a large mixingbowl, combine swerve mix, sour cream, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir until well combined. If using astand mixer,whiskon medium-high for 5 minutes.

Line cupcake tin withcupcake linersand spray the liners withnonstick spray. This will help keep the papers from sticking to the cupcake. Fill 18 cupcake liners with 1/4 cup of batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool while you prepare the frosting.

In a largebowlcombine butter, shortening, salt, and vanilla. Mix on high in astand mixeror with ahand mixer. Once creamed together, add 1/3 of your powdered swerve. Alternate powdered swerve and a splash of water until you have reached your desired consistency.

Transfer half of the frosting into apiping bagwith a large flat tip. Transfer about 3 tbsp of the remaining icing into another piping bag with a very small star shaped tip. Split the remaining icing into two bowls. Color one bowl of frosting red and one bowl blue using food coloring. Start with a few drops, you can always add more if necessary. Transfer blue and red frosting to their own piping bags, both with small flat tips.*

Once your cupcakes have cooled, align them on your serving tray 6 cupcakes x 3 cupcakes. Now that you have a flag shape, pick which 4 cupcakes will be your stars. This should be at the top left corner of your flag. Cover these 4 cupcakes completely with blue icing, making sure you're filling in the spaces between the cupcakes too. Using the large bag of white frosting, cover the rest of the cupcakes.

At this point you want to smooth out all the lines and holes with a small offsetspatulaorbutterknife. If there are holes just add more icing and smooth it out. With the red frosting carefully make 8 evenly spaced, horizontal lines on the white iced cupcakes. With the small bag of white frosting, make little dots on the blue cupcakes to look like stars.