Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Their arn't many times when I'll bake a classic cheesecake, five layer chocolate cake, or one of my favorites, red velvet with cream cheese frosting. The only times I do bake heavy duty classics are most likely when I'm baking it for someone else. If I were to bake it for my family, it would be very likely, too likely in fact, that I would eat a big slice everyday, which is why I always try baking lighter treats. But sometimes, after you've managed to squeeze in some long walks in the morning, you're in the mood for baking, you want something that will put a huge smile on your face, and not to mention you've got some red food coloring on hand...then it is time to bake some red velvet!!

I decided to go with red velvet cupcakes and found a recipe on allrecipes.com. The link to the recipe is http://allrecipes.com/Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?RecipeID=105768&servings=20.
The only changes I would make when baking these are putting only 1/4 cup of cocoa powder instead, because I found the fll 1/3 cup to be too much, and then putting half oil, instead of all butter, because I would have prefered the red velvet cupcakes to be a little moister.

I also used half white flour, and the other half whole wheat flour, which didn't make a dramatically noticably difference, except the color of the batter wasn't able to get as deep and rich of a red as I would have liked, but none the less, they were definatly still red.


When even amounts of the batter was all scooped into each cupcake tin, they went into the oven and then finally came back out


But I couldn't start scarfing them down just yet. Because a red velvet cupcake without cream cheese frosting, to me, is like an oreo without milk! So I had to wait for the cupcake to cool, and in the mean I made a cream cheese frosting to go with it.

I only had an 8 ounce cream cheese jar, which was 1/3 empty, so I mixed that with 1/4 cup of softened butter, then added a drop of vanilla and gradually added 1 1/2- 2 cups of powdered sugar (however much you need to make it as thick or thin as you like)

So finally the cupcakes had cooled and the cream cheese frosting was ready, so I dolloped a spoonful onto each cupcake and spread it out with the spoon itself, eagerly trying to get them finished so I could eat one asap!
I crumbed the smallest cupcake (because who wants to have to eat the smallest one?!) before I frosted it, onto all the other cupcakes after they had been frosted.


About 30 pictures of red velvet cupcakes later, I was finally able to reach for one of them for myself...

...and it was love at first bite!!

Lots and Lots of Different Cupcakesss!

Through out last year, I baked plenty, but didn't think of making a blog at that time, so I rarely photograghed my food. I was looking through old pictures and was fortunate enough to find a picture of something I had baked for a friend's birthday. We had a memory of craving cupcakes after passing a sprinkles cupcake and crumbs cupcake shop and so of course I went with cupcakes! She's one of my closest friends, so I decided on making her a variety of cupcakes with flavors she picked out.
I don't remeber the basic cupcake recipe I used, but the flavors added are simple enough to add to any cupcake recipe you like
The picture quality itself isn't that great and each cupcake was only photographed once so I didn't have much variety to choose from for the best looking pictures of each. The little papers stuck onto each cupcake have the flavor and frosting types of each cupcake written on them, though its sort of blurry

Cupcake #1
Flavor: Vanilla Cupcake with Nutella Swirl
Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream mixed with Nutella
Topping: Small Chocolate Chunks and Tuxedo Chocolate Covered Strawberry


Cupcake #2
Flavor: Chocolate Cupcake with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup chunks
Frosting: Peanut Butter Frosting
Topping: Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Crumbles

(the link to this recipe is originally from http://icecreambeforedinner.blogspot.com/2008/07/chocolate-peanut-butter-cup-cupcakes.html, an amazing and absolutely deliciousss blog!)

Cupcake #3
Flavor: Cinamon Sugar with Pecans and Walnuts
Frosting: Cinamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Topping: Pecans and Walnuts and and a Small Sprinkle of Cinammon


Cupcake #4
Flavor: Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Covered Caramel Chunks
Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream with Nutella Swirls
Topping: Chocolate Coated Caramel Chunks and Chocolate Covered Strawberry with White Chocolate Stripes


I packaged all 4 cupcakes up in a plastic container and took it to school the following morning to surprise my friend and make her birthday nutrition/lunch at school a little more satisfying ;)

Whole-Wheat Cupcakes/Muffins with Homemade Frosting

My little cousin had to bring treats to her camp for the last day. My aunt called me up and told me she was going to bake something with my cousin and asked me to help.

She uses this basic recipe for all her cakes, cupcakes, and recipes which originally came from an apple cake recipe:

-6 eggs
-2 cup. Sugar
-3/4 cup. Oil
-3 cup. Flour
-3 Tsp. Baking Powder
-1/2 cup. Orange Juice
-Vanilla

Directions:
1. Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla together.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together
3. Alternate adding the flour and baking powder mixture and the orange juice to the wet ingredients, starting with the flour and ending with the flour
4. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

My aunt changed the recipe up a little by using what she only had on hand
The flour she used was whole-wheat and used light brown sugar
She also didn't add the orange juice, which gave the cupcakes a texture of muffins.

The cupcakes should get filled up about 2/3 full each

Scooping the batter into the cupcake tins with an icecream scooper, is a great technique, because it assures even amounts of batter in all the cupcakes

Even with the texture of a muffin, after they had baked and then cooled, they got frosted with a homemade frosting

Frosting Recipe:
-1 cup butter, softened
-8 cups confectioners' sugar
-6 tablespoons milk
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

You can just beat all the ingredients together in a mixer making sure to add the confectionary sugar a cup or two at a time. It will be pretty thick, so if you want it creamier just add a couple more tablespoons of milk.


And with a little food coloring, the frosting was turned into a light blue, which got swirled onto each cupcake


Of course my cousin made sure that each cupcake got a nice big sprinkle of a princess sprinkles mix