Red Velvet Cupcakes

When I asked my mom what kind of cake or dessert she wanted for her birthday, she responded with basically "Anything you can put cream cheese frosting on." That's exactly my kind of baking assignment!

I fell in love with allrecipes.com back in 2003-04 as a freshman living at Miller Scholarship Hall. All these years later, it's still my default recipe search engine.

So I settled on these cupcakes: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/red-velvet-cupcakes-3/Detail.aspx

And this frosting: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cream-Cheese-Frosting-II-2/Detail.aspx

My husband had just cleaned my recently-humiliatingly-dirty oven/stove. Lookit!

I used my KitchenAid mixer to whip up the cupcake ingredients.

I was rushed and didn't make any effort to get the flash right. It shows here. Sorry about that.

Because I love my mommy, I used the organic eggs and Shatto milk I had in the fridge. I'm not sure if it affected the end taste or not, but it felt nice doing it.

A friend's mom gave us this vanilla as a wedding gift. In case you didn't know, Mexican vanilla ROCKS!

I wanted the red velvet to be really red and not sorta pink, so I used gel food coloring. These are about $2 apiece at JoAnn or Hobby Lobby and completely worth it. Supposedly some people taste red dye as bitter, and my husband is one of those. So I bought the no-taste red, and he said it was good.

Gel dye goes a long way, but I may have overdone it.

One of my brothers doesn't like chocolate cake, but I thought maybe I could sneak this one by him. I was wrong. More for the rest of us!

Because these were birthday cupcakes, I wanted to make them a little fancy-like. My Price Chopper only has two kinds of cupcake liners, so I decided these foil ones were prettier than pastel paper ones.

Cupcakes!

The next day, I whipped up some frosting after work. Cream cheese + butter + vanilla + powdered sugar = cream cheese frosting. It's that easy. You'll want to use an electric mixer for this.

I don't have fancy cupcake-decorating skills.

I do have some delicious cupcake-making skills, if I do say so myself.

Yumyumyum.

These are so easy. Take up the challenge and make these instead of boxed cake mix and canned frosting the next time you want to make red velvet cake.

If anyone wants more detailed directions than I have below, refer to the original recipe links at the top of this post or comment and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Red Velvet Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
(makes 15 cupcakes)

Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
Red Food Color Gel
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix all ingredients.
2. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.
3. Cool completely.

Frosting
8 oz cream cheese (1 package), softened
1/2 stick real butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth.
2. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until incorporated.
3. Frost cooled cupcakes.