Red Velvet Awesome!

This past Saturday was a good friend's birthday, and his request was red velvet cupcakes.

Now, I've tried some red velvet recipes in the past, only to get less than pleasing results. But I was willing to try once again, and apparently the recipe gods heard my wish, because I found one heck of an amazing recipe! And even some pretty awesome icing to top them with.

The sprinkles are just tiny red circles that I got in a winter sprinkles collection, the were called red winterberries, I believe. Pretty snazzy, eh?

And yes, I will share this amazing recipe!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (or all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (only if using unsalted butter)
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 oz. red food coloring
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature (if you don’t have any buttermilk, you can take 1
cup of milk, add 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar, mix and let sit for ten minutes.)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins or silicone pans with cupcake liners.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. In a smaller bowl, sift cocoa powder and mix in food coloring to form a thin paste without lumps and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon or stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and the red cocoa paste, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go. Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk. Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of buttermilk. End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

4. In a small bowl, mix vinegar and baking soda. Be careful as it will fizz so don't do it in a shallow bowl. Add vinegar mixture to the cake batter and stir well to combine. Fill cupcake cups with cake batter until they are a little under 3/4 full. I use my trusty ice cream scoop. Bake for about 20-22 minutes, rotating pans halfway through. The cupcake are done when you insert a toothpick into a cupcake in the center of the tin and if it comes out clean.

5. Cool the cupcakes in their tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes then remove and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is enough for me to frost about 20 cupcakes, but I frost sparingly, If you like a lot of frosting on your cupcakes, you can double this recipe easily.

1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Cream together the cream cheese and butter until fluffy and smooth.

2. Mix in the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract until smooth.

3. Frost your cupcakes and enjoy!

Olympic Games

And here we are for cupcake fondant practice number two: Olympic style. I used a white cake, unfortunately the cake was not amazing, so no recipes this time. Anyhow, I decided on three iconic images, the Inukshuk, the olympic rings and the torch.

This one is my favorite. I only have the primary colors for fondant so I got to mix the rest, which was pretty fun.

Here's the rings, not my proudest work, but whatever.And finally, the torch! Not the torch they used for this years opening ceremonies obviously, but I'm not awesome enough to try that yet. I went for a more traditional (as in generic) look.

And then a quick look at all of them together. Yeah, ignore that crumb in the corner...

Until next time!

Roll Out!

Well, I was going to work on oatmeal cookies... but then I decided to nerd out a little bit. I decided to knock out two things at once: trying out a new cupcake recipe and working with fondant (small scale.) I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, unfortunately, I'm not very good with fondant. A little practice was in order. Here's how they turned out!

Transformers! Both the Autobots and the Decepticons need some love, chocolate cupcake love.Not too shabby for a first timer, huh? We'll just ignore the ridiculous amount of time these took...

I will keep working on a way to do these in less time. If anyone's got any tips, I'd love to hear them! Oh and here's the cupcake recipe:

Ingredients:
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (only if you use unsalted butter)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time with vanilla extract, beat until smooth.
3. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt (only if using unsalted butter) and baking powder and mix half into the butter and eggs, pour in milk and stir until smooth. Add in second half of flour mixture and stir until smooth.
4. set cupcake pan with cupcake liners and use an ice cream scoop to fill liners (scoop size will vary depending on the size of your cupcakes, batter should fill 2/3 of the cupcake liner otherwise it will overflow.)
5. Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.Ice and enjoy!

Sooner or later, I'll post a good icing recipe, but until then, just use your favorite.