Let me just come out and say it – these are absolutely amazing.  I never thought I liked red velvet cake until I tried these cupcakes. Granted, my only experience with it came from watching Steel Mangolias, and who would ever want to try red velvet cake after seeing that armadillo cake?? I would probably still be avoiding this particular cake flavor if someone hadn’t specifically requested it. I made cupcakes for a bridal shower this past week and of the three flavors requested, red velvet with cream cheese frosting was at the top of the list.

Oh well, I thought. I just have to make them, I don’t have to eat them. And then there were extra…and I ate one…and it changed my outlook on life. Or at least my outlook on red velvet cake. Now I can’t get enough! It’s light and fluffy, just as cake should be. And the flavor is something amazing, something altogether different than plain old white cake. Can red food coloring really do that? Regardless, you need to try these. They’re pretty and delicious and smothered in cream cheese frosting. What else do you need to know?

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Yield: makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (~1 oz.) liquid red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar

Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp. clear vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners and set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed then increase the speed and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in a center cupcake comes out with moist crumbs, 18-20 minutes. Let cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract then gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated. Increase the speed and beat until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

*If you're going to pipe the frosting on like I did, you will most likely need to increase the quantity by 50%. You will probably have a little left over, but that's better than running out. If you're just spreading the frosting on with a knife, you should be fine with the amount as written.

from Annies Eats

The first year we were married, Mike made me a cake for my birthday. We’d only been married for about 1 month, so I think he was still trying to impress me with what a good husband he was. He made a spice cake from a Betty Crocker mix (my favorite!) with spice icing. I’m pretty sure it’s the only cake he’s ever made and he was so proud of himself. The cake turned out wonderfully, and he went to work the following Monday and told his coworkers he made a cake  – “from scratch”. As it turns out, he had no idea that making a cake from a box mix is not, in fact, baking it from scratch. When his coworkers realized this, everyone had a big laugh, and he hasn’t made me another cake since.

I’m not one to put down cake mixes (that Betty Crocker spice cake is seriously my favorite!), but when a “from scratch” cake turns out as good as these cupcakes, there really is no reason to start with a boxed mix. These cupcakes are light and fluffy with a great vanilla flavor. The cake isn’t as sweet as you’d expect, which makes it a perfect balance to the vanilla buttercream icing. The combination of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing was wonderful. Mike couldn’t get enough of these, and neither could I. This is an all-around classic vanilla cake recipe that can be made as a layer cake, a sheet cake, or cupcakes. I’m sure I’ll be returning to this recipe again and again.

Vanilla Butter Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

Cake:
4 large eggs (separated)
3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar, divided
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup milk (room temperature)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Frosting:
3 sticks unsalted butter
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
6 cups powdered sugar
~4 Tbsp heavy whipping cream (or milk)

Directions:

For the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in center of oven. Line approximately 30 cupcake tins with cupcake liners. (You may have to bake them in two batches). While eggs are still cold, separate the eggs, placing the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another bowl. Cover the two bowls and allow the eggs to come to room temperature (about 30 minutes).

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add 1 1/2 cups of sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

In a clean bowl using the whisk attachment of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Using a rubber spatula gently fold a little of the whites into the batter to lighten it, and then fold in the remaining whites until combined. Be careful not over-mix or deflate the batter.

Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake tins. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a center cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan.

For the frosting: Cream the butter bowl of an electric mixer. Beat in the sugar and vanilla. Add the cream a Tablespoon at a time and beat until icing is a spreadable consistency.

adapted from Sweetapolita

I was tempted to leave a description out of this blog post and just let the pictures speak for themselves, but I can’t help but talk about this cake. Its incredible moistness. It’s light, yet sturdy texture. The intense chocolate flavor. And best of all…the hot chocolate buttercream icing. Yes, you read that right. Hot Chocolate Buttcream Icing.  Joy the Baker calls this “the best ever chocolate frosting.” I agree – and I would appreciate it if we didn’t talk about how much I ate.

We had a family birthday party last weekend and I was asked to bring the cake. Well…that’s not exactly accurate. I got the email about having a family party and immediately started thinking about cake flavors. I came up with a few different options and printed the recipes before Mike asked me: “Were you even asked to bring a cake?” Minor details! I decided on the dark chocolate cake you see here and emailed my mother-in-law saying “I’d be happy to bring a birthday cake if you’d like.” (In my head I was thinking “Pleeeeease let me bring a cake because now I’m sold on this cake and I have to make it and I should definitely not be left alone with a whole cake at our house!”). 

Dark Chocolate Cake with Hot Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup Dark Cocoa Powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup strong black coffee
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Icing:
(makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes or one 8-inch layer cake. If you want extra icing for decorating the cake, I would do 1 1/2 times the recipe.)
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered hot chocolate mix (I used nestle hot cocoa mix)

Directions:

For the cake: Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare 2 x 9″ cake pans with butter and flour or parchment paper. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl of electric mixer. Add the remaning ingredients to the bowl. With paddle attachment on mixer, mix for 2 minutes on medium speed (you may need the plastic splashguard that comes with mixer). The batter will be liquidy. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake for 20 minutes, then rotate the pans in the oven. Bake 15 minutes longer or until a toothpick comes out clean – approximately 35 minutes total. Cool on wire racks for 20 minutes then gently invert onto racks until completely cool.

For the icing: Cream together butter, cocoa powder and salt. The mixture will be very thick. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the powdered sugar. With the mixer on low, mix in powdered sugar while slowly adding milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer to beat the frosting. Beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, stir together heavy cream and hot chocolate mix. Turn mixer speed to medium and pour cream mixture into frosting in a slow, steady stream, until you’ve reached your desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of hot chocolate mix and cream.

cake recipe from Sweetapolita and icing adapted from Joy the Baker

I spent a long time thinking that beautifully iced cupcakes were out of my reach. Sure other bloggers and bakers could do it, but me and my lack of artistic talent sure couldn’t. Imagine my surprise when I realized that it’s really not as hard as it looks! In fact, it’s even easier than using a knife to spread the icing on.

All it takes is a pastry bag and the right tip. It took me a long time to figure out that the missing key was the right tip. For big swirls like you see on these cupcakes, you need a tip with a big opening.  Eventually I went to Michael’s, stood in the cake decorating section and pondered my choices. I finally figured out that the easiest thing to do was search a decorating book for the look I wanted, find out what tip the decorators used, and just buy what they recommended.  My tip of choice for what you see here is a Wilton 1M tip, but any star tip with a large opening will work.

To get the look of the above cupcakes, first attach your tip to your pastry bag and fill the bag with frosting. (I like to hold the bag loosely in my hand and fold the excess out over my hand to make it easier to fill.)  Then, simply start from the outside of the cupcake and make a swirl of frosting around the top of the cupcake, working from the outside to the center. If you think it seems complicated, it’s actually much easier than it sounds. It might take one or two cupcakes to practice, but I promise you’ll have professional looking cupcakes in no time.

Mini Colorful Chocolate Cupcakes

To make the icing “roses” you see above, I did the same thing I just described, but started the icing in the center of the cupcake and swirled out around it. Still simple, and it gives you a slightly different, daintier look.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any other tips for fancy icing!

If you’re looking for more inspiration, Katie from Good Life Eats posted a great kitchen tip on cupcake piping last week, and Jen from My Kitchen Addiction has a great picture tutorial for frosting cupcakes. I learned the “rose” design from Amanda from I am Baker who has a great rose cake tutorial on her site – can’t wait to try that one!

Oh, and I also posted a review about the Wilton cake decorating class that I attended.  In short – I loved it and learned a lot! You may want to consider it in the future if you haven’t gone!

Black Magic Cream Filled cupcakes

I couldn’t let Valentine’s Day pass without attempting some more cookie decorating. I almost gave up on the idea, especially when I realized how busy my weekend was going to be. But once I saw the chocolate cookies decorated for Valentine’s Day on Annies-Eats, I knew I needed to try some of my own.
 

I used the same cookie recipe as Annie, which comes from Martha Stewart. The cookies are chocolately and soft and perfect for decorating.  I used my favorite icing recipe (from Amanda at I Am Baker) and experimented with some new techniques to get the designs you see in the pictures. I still clearly need to work on piping a border on circular cookies – mine end up looking more like ovals, but I was happy with the way the hearts turned out. The process gets easier each time I do it, and it really is a lot of fun.

Mike loved the chocolatey cookies and hung around watching me decorate, waiting for me to give the ok that he could eat the decorating rejects. 🙂

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

¾ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Whisk together the four, cocoa poweder and salt in a small bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Form the dough into a disc, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out to about ¼-inch thickness. Cut out desired shapes and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until just set. Let cool on the baking sheet about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Decorate as desired.

adapted from Martha Stewart, as seen on Annies-Eats

I feel like I’ve been missing out when I look at all the cute halloween recipes showing up on my favorite blogs. For some reason, I just don’t normally bake halloween specific things. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been very good at decorating? Well this year I got around that by simply baking something with the colors of halloween. If it’s black and orange, it automatically becomes halloween themed, right? (This would be great if my icing actually turned out orange instead of a random shade of peach.)

On Friday night, Mike is helping out with an all-nighter for our church youth group. I volunteered to make a snack as my contribution (the least I could do since I refused to stay up all night with them) and I figured what better time to try out halloween themed cupcakes! I sent out a plea on twitter for some help and Lindsey from Gingerbread Bagels came through with this wonderful recipe.

Not only are they black and orange, therefore fulfilling my halloween requirement, but they have cream inside them! Mike absolutely loves cream filled cupcakes and I figured the amount of sugar in these would help anybody stay up all night. I decided to make mini cupcakes and I was pretty happy with how they turned out. They are fairly time consuming to make, but the end result is so cute that I think it’s totally worth it. I don’t like chocolate cake, so I can’t speak to how they taste, but Mike took a huge bite, closed his eyes, and said “mmmm these are sooo good”, so I think that means they were a success.  He then proceeded to eat all the rejects that I messed up while decorating.  I’ll have to wait and see what the teens think at the all nighter, but in the meantime, if you’re looking for a fun treat for halloween, give these a try!

And don’t worry if you can’t get to these before Halloween – they look equally as cute with white frosting 🙂

Black Magic Cream Filled Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1/2 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed strong coffee, make sure it’s hot! (I used instant coffee mixed with 8 oz of water)

Cream Filling:
7 oz marshmallow cream
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla Buttercream Icing:
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 cup shortening, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
3 1/2 ounces heavy cream

Directions:

For the Cupcakes:Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin/cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I did mini cupcakds without cupcake liners, but I would definitely use liners next time - it was very hard to get these out of the pan. Learn from my mistakes.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and kosher salt into a large mixing bowl and set aside. In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together buttermilk, canola oil, vanilla and eggs.

Prepare the coffee maker and start brewing 1 cup of coffee. It’s important that the coffee is very hot when you add it to the batter because if it isn’t, your batter will have lumps and the cupcakes will sink in the middle.

Turn the mixer of low and slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until somewhat combined. Slowly pour in the 1 cup of strong hot brewed coffee. Mix until barely combined. There may be some lumps in the batter but there shouldn’t be too many. Use a spatula and give the batter a stir to incorporate it a bit more. The batter will be very thin, like liquid.

Pour the batter into a measuring cup. Fill each cupcake liner until half full. Bake at 350 degrees for 14-15 minutes. Don’t open the oven up they’re done. (I had to bake about 12 minutes for mini cupcakes). Cool the cupcakes in the muffin/cupcake pan for about 10 minutes. Then remove from the pan and let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

Fill the cupcakes with the cream filling using a piping bag fitted with a decorating tip. After filling the cupcakes, frost them with the vanilla buttercream frosting.

For the Filling:Beat together the marshmallow cream and unsalted butter until completely combined at medium speed. Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you like and mix the cream filling again. Put the mixture in a piping bag with a decorating tip. Place the tip of the bag in the center of the cupcake and pipe some filling into it.

For the Icing: Cream together the butter and shortening on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and salt. Put the mixer on low and slowly add the powdered sugar. Once it’s all added, increase the speed for about a minute. Then take your spatula and scrap the bottom of the mixing bowl to help incorporate the ingredients.

Pour in the cream while the mixer is on low. Then increase the speed a bit more. Now take a spatula/mixing spoon to mix up the frosting. The frosting won’t be smooth at this point, so don't worry. Turn the mixer on high speed and beat for about 5 minutes. The frosting should be very light and fluffy.

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How good do these vanilla chai cupcakes look?? They are so perfect for fall. They are full of cinnamon and spice and have the wonderful taste of chai tea – in cupcake form! They are light and cake-like, and the frosting is perfectly sweet and creamy. I made these cupcakes to celebrate the engagement of Mike’s sister Jess, and her fiance Brett. Aren’t they a cute couple?

They shared their celebratory cupcakes with some of our friends, and everyone loved them. Mike kept saying “the frosting to cupcake ratio is perfect!” (He’s an accountant, he thinks in ratios). Our other friend, Kevin, said (with his mouth full) “you need to rename these ‘Octoberfest Cupcakes’ because they taste like Fall!”. Suffice it to say the cupcakes were pretty much devoured, and I can’t wait to make them again.

Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 quantity chai spice mix (recipe to follow)
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Chai Spice Mix
1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 ts cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Vanilla Chai Buttercream
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 quantity chai spice mix
1-2 tbs cold milk, if needed

Directions:

For the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a cupcake tin or line with cupcake wrappers. Mix spices together in small bowl and set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and beat in one egg at a time. Stir in half the quantity of chai spice mix. Sift together the flour and salt into a separate bow. Fold in the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately and stir until combined. Be careful not to over mix. Mix together the baking soda and vinegar and stir into the batter.

Spoon into prepared cupcake tin until 3/4 full and bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a center cupcake comes out clean.

For the icing: In a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is creamy. On low, mix in the vanilla and the rest of the chai spice mix. Carefully beat in the icing sugar about ½ cup at a time. If the buttercream is too thick add 1-2 tbs of cold milk until the desired consistency is reached.Then pipe onto cooled cupcakes with your favorite frosting tip.

adapted from Some More Please, seen on The Novice Chef