Red Velvet Cupcakes

A coworker of mine, loves Red Velvet cupcakes and often requests that I make them. I am not a huge fan, so I often ignored the requests and just made everyone's favorite, Chocolate. We'll when this said coworker, Liz, announced that she was packing her bags a moving to Minnesota, I decided it was time to make her some Red Velvet cupcakes.

We had a going away Nacho Bar (I'm not the only one in the word that loves "fake Cheese") and I provided the cupcakes for dessert. I was a little nervous since it was my first try, but it was rather easy and cupcakes tasted delicious. My favorite part of the whole cupcake was the wrapper. I found a new kind of wrapper called "stay bright." They don't get greasy like other wrappers. Their colors stay bright and beautiful. Such a great find. If you don't believe me check out this picture of my cupcakes.

Almost TOO pretty to eat!

Here is Liz and her daughter Rosie. Rosie loves to cook and bake also, so as a going away gift I emailed Liz the cupcake recipe. Maybe for her birthday Rosie can make her the cupcakes.

Chris' sister Adrina was staying with us for a few weeks, so she happily helped me make the cupcakes. Chris loved this since he is normally the one who gets stuck in the kitchen with me. I found the recipe online here. I followed the recipe exactly and the cupcakes turned out perfect.

Here is the recipe.

Bake time: 30 minutes Oven: 325
Yields 24 cupcakes

1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 TBS red food coloring
1/2 cup boiling water
6 TBS butter, softened
2 TBS shortening (Crisco)
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cake flour, sifted (I don't have a sifter, so I didn't sift)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vinegar (white or apple cider)
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 325. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a small bowl mix cocoa powder, food coloring and boiling water- set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening until blended. Beat in sugar until light and fluffy.
Add egg one at a time, beating after each addition.

Stir buttermilk and vanilla into cocoa mix.

Alternate adding flour, salt and buttermilk mixture into butter/sugar mixture.

In another small bowl, sprinkle baking soda over vinegar and mix. Pour over batter and mix until incorporated.

Using an ice cream scoop, evenly distribute batter among cupcakes.

Bake for 30 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean and cupcake springs back to touch.

Remove cupcakes from pan to allow for cooling and place on cooling rack.

I iced the cupcakes with Mom's cream cheese frosting and then sprinkled them with cupcake crumbs. All my coworkers said they looked and tasted better then Sprinkles. I take that as a success.