Red Velvet Cupcakes Filled With Cream Cheese Frosting

                            

Mmm... what says Happy Valentine's Day better than red velvet cake? Besides chocolate, flowers and jewelry...nothing. And what says red velvet cake better than cream cheese frosting? Absolutely nothing. I love cream cheese frosting. On red velvet cake. On carrot cake. Out of the bowl. I love it. I also love red velvet cake because it is essentially chocolate cake, but dyed red and is there really anything better in the universe than chocolate cake? I think not. 

I made these cupcakes for the guys (and the 3 ladies) at my husbands job. I'm pretty sure they loved them since all 30 of them were gone within an hour. I know, I know... I am awesome. 

Anyways, here is the recipe, and it's easier than pie (since pie isnt that easy) and it's delicious, and with cream cheese frosting it is heaven. Enjoy!

Red Velvet Cake by Kimba

Ingredients for cupcakes

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 bottle (1 oz) red food coloring
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions for making cupcakes

1. 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. 
3. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. 
4. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time. 
5. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla. 
6. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat. 
7. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
8. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely.

Ingredients for frosting

•  8oz package of cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 16oz confection sugar

Directions for frosting

1.  Beat cream cheese, butter, sour cream and vanilla extract in a large bowl until light and fluffy. 
2. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth.

Assembling Cupcakes

1. Make an indentation in the center of each cupcake using the handle of a wooden spoon or a straw, making sure not to break through bottom of cupcake. 
2. Spoon frosting into a cake decorating bag (or resealable plastic bag with a small piece off one of the bottom corners of bag cut off). 
3. Pipe about 1 teaspoon frosting into each cupcake. 
4. Decorate the tops of the cupcakes with remaining frosting. 

**Tips**

I used a smaller star tip to fill the cupcakes, and then a large one to decorate the tops. The cupcake recipe makes about 30 cupcakes, where as the frosting wasn't nearly enough. I ended up making 3 batches of the frosting recipe to fill all 30 cupcakes and then frost them. I had some leftover too so I would recommend using 2.5 batches of frosting.

Pumpkin Cupcakes & Cream Cheese Frosting

There are tons of pumpkin cupcake recipes out there. When I was in search of one to make I was pointed in the direction to "The Way the Cookie Crumbles" blog. The writer of the blog made 3 different types of pumpkin cupcakes (the 3 top rated and talked about on the internet). After sampling the variety her and her husband both decided that the pumpkin cakes recipe by David Leite via Smitten Kitchen reigned supreme. So I made them. Why waste time cooking and eating other cupcakes that weren't going to be as good? Have I ever told you that I was gullible? :)

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Ingredients

- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing pans
- 1 cup firmly packed dark-brown sugar
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup buttermilk mixed with 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1¼ cups canned solid-pack pumpkin

:: Directions ::

1. Preheat the oven to 350° (175°C). Line a cupcake pan with 18 liners.

2. In a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and pepper into a medium bowl.

3. Add the eggs 1 at a time to the mixer, scraping down the sides after each addition. Alternate adding the flour and milk mixtures, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat in the pumpkin until smooth. Divide the batter equally between the cups. (They’ll be about ¾ full.) Rap the filled pans once on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool the cupcakes on racks completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 4oz cream cheese
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
- In a large bowl beat together butter & cream cheese with mixed.

- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until smooth & creamy.

- Beat in vanilla extract

*Since its pumpkin & fall I decided to add some Wilton orange coloring gel to my frosting to make it pretty*

Apple Brownies

I got this recipe from my wonderful mother in law. Apparently she has a whole stash of old family recipes from her aunt. This was a favorite of my husbands growing up and he begged me to make it after I came home with 2 pecks of apples from an apple picking adventure. So from our family, to yours, enjoy!

Apple Brownies
1/2 c margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
a few apples (pealed, cored & chopped)

- Whip margarine while gradually adding sugar & egg.
- Beat until light & creamy
- Mix in apples
- Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl than combine with margarine mixture.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

This fills one small 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish. I doubled the recipe for my 13x9 baking dish. To get the apples into small enough pieces I peeled, cored & diced than added them to my kitchenaid chopper.

fast food fun!

I made this for the 4th of July, it was bit time consuming but fun non the less. My husband seemed to enjoy it, he had several of them so I guess it couldnt have been that bad! lol

These are adorable little mini burgers & fries for dessert. It ended up making 1 dozen. It could have easily made 2 dozen if you make another batch of brownies.



The bun is a cup cake, the burger is a brownie and the fries are sugar cookies.

I got this off of Bakerella, so you know it has to be good!

I made the tray out of card stock, just printed it and cut it out. And the french fry case is made out of parchment paper but you can use vellum if you can find it at the craft store.

I cheated and used mixes because I had absolutely no time to make something from scratch, but you're more than welcome to if you want.

I used yellow cake mix for the cupcakes, make sure you bake them in baking cups. A family size brownie mix and 1 package of sugar cookie mix. On the back of the sugar cookie mix are instructions to make cut out cookies, follow those.

Once everything was baked and cool I sliced the cupcakes in half. I used a circle cookie cutter 3" to cut out the brownies. Place the brownie on the bottom half of the cupcake. For frosting I used classic white and divided it into 3 containers. I used Wilton Christmas Red for the ketchup, Wilton Golden Yellow for mustard and Wilton Leaf Green for the lettuce. Then I just put each color into a Ziploc bag and cut the tip of one of the bottom corners off.

(photo by Bakerella)

Add the icing to the top of the brownies then had the cupcake top to complete. I then lightly brushed water onto the tops of the cupcakes and sprinkled sesame seeds.

(photo by Bakerella)

For the french fries, I rolled the cookie dough out flat then cut it into thin strips. I sprinkled with sugar before I baked it. These still came out pretty chubby so I immediately sliced them again and added a bit more sugar.

(photo by Bakerella)

Perfect!!