Red Velvet Cupcakes

I haven't written a blog in a while. It was a very busy April and now I am getting into May and haven't written about any cupcakes that I have most definitely made. We've had numerous soccer games (or rain outs anyway), my son's birthday party, I helped with the Holy Week lunches at church,by providing cupcakes, of course :) and I have subbed at the school a bunch!!! During the Holy Week lunches, I took a few requests from some special people on what kind of cupcakes they wanted. One very special lady asked for Red Velvet. I do not like red velvet cake. . . or at least what I have tasted as red velvet. I have tried the cake mix variety and a bite of other red velvet cakes and not been a fan. Because this lady is so special, I decided I would try to find a suitable recipe. Once I made this, several people thoroughly enjoyed it so I am very glad I adjusted this recipe to meet my cupcake fancy.

Powdered butter milk

One thing this recipe called for was buttermilk. I only use buttermilk sparingly, so I really don't like to buy it. My sister-in-law has in the past, used a "powdered buttermilk" and I thought I would give it a go for this recipe. This is an easy product to use. The container shows on the back how much powder and water to use. It states to put the powder in with your dry ingredients, and put the water in when it says to put in the buttermilk. If you buy buttermilk a lot or if you just "sour" your milk with a tablespoon of vinegar, this paragraph will be pointless for you. Just ignore it :) I am going to write my recipe below in the way that I did it. You can always check the above link to follow that recipe.


Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cocoa
1 cups buttermilk* (4TBSP buttermilk powder and 1 cup water, divided)
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 eggs
Red food coloring (I used a gel coloring)
1 teaspoon distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

A stiff cream cheese frosting to swirl on cupcakes (recipe listed below)



Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Sift dry ingredients together: flour, sugar, baking soda and cocoa. *This is also when I added my 4 TBSP powdered buttermilk to the dry ingredients. In another bowl add the buttermilk (or in my case water), oil, eggs, vinegar, vanilla and food coloring. Mix the two together and put in prepared cupcake pans. I baked this for about 22 minutes and I believe I got about 18 out of this recipe.

It was a little "pink" before it was baked

On the outside, it was a little pink.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Mix these ingredients until smooth.
*1 stick of butter
*1 8 oz package cream cheese
*1 tsp vanilla
*8 cups powdered sugar (more if you need it stiffer to pipe, maybe a little less if you just want to spread it)
*2 TBSP milk (dependent on how thin or thick you want your icing)

Iced with a round tip, Red Velvet cupcakes.

These were well received by everyone. I actually liked the taste of this. It just goes to show a good recipe (and a cake not over done) can really change your perspective on something you might not like.

Carrot Cupcakes

I think I make a pretty decent carrot cake. Honestly, why make something like this that no one likes. I make it a lot for family get-togethers or church functions. One of my brothers really likes it, at least he claims to. It might just be that he is being nice and eating half the cake. :) I decided that if I can make it as a cake, let's see what it would be like for a cupcake. I found the original recipe several years ago in one of those cookbooks that you find at the end of a register. I have adapted it for how I like it.

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 c oil (I use canola)
3 cups shredded carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese (8 oz)
1/2 cup butter
8 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp milk (this is an approximation based on how thick you want your icing)
1 tsp vanilla


Directions:
Put flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl and stir the ingredients together. (I use a whisk to do this, it just gets it well blended). In another bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs. Combine the two bowls. This will be a pretty thick mixture. Add the carrots and stir well. Pour into your prepared pan and bake at 350 {cupcake (about 25-30 minutes), 9x13 (40-45 minutes), jelly roll (25-30 minutes), 2 rounds (35-40 minutes)--these are all ways I have made this recipe}. When this is cooled, use your favorite cream cheese icing (or use mine above) and enjoy.

Helpful Hints:
My grocery store has, in the past, carried shredded carrots that were perfect. It was the right amount and the right size. They don't appear to carry those anymore, but the julienne carrots work nicely in the cake. They are a little big for the cupcakes. I got 24 cupcakes out of this, but I think I filled my first cupcake pan too full, so you might be able to get a few more than that. You probably only need to fill the pan about half full, because these will rise, a lot. Since this was something I had not done before, I only made one pan in the beginning (knowing I could put it in a cake pan and bake the other half of the batter). After I saw how it would work, I finished filling my other cupcake pan. I think a nice add on, if you like it, would be to add raisins to these cupcakes. Walnuts, either to the icing or the cake itself, would be lovely as well.

All but about 3 were filled too full

The pan on the left I filled to half

Overall, I think it turned out nicely as a cupcake. I hope you try it sometime and let me know what you think. A few other things I have done with this recipe is put all the dry ingredients in a quart size bag (it doesn't seem to fit in a mason jar though) and given it as a gift with a tag saying to add eggs, oil and carrots and the baking directions. Additionally, I have replaced the sugar with Splenda and it tastes yummy.

Carrot Cupcake with cream cheese frosting

****************I made these again and this is what I did **************

M & Ms in the shape of a carrot