Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

 

Today was a beautiful Sunday in Cambridge, so I took the opportunity to run around Fresh Pond with Dave, but afterward I was itching to bake some cupcakes. I went to "Cupcake Camp" (http://www.cupcakecampboston.com/) last Wednesday with some friends from work, which was basically an all-you-can-eat-cupcake-extravaganza. I've been trying to stay away from the cupcake craze (why are cupcakes better than cake?!) but at Cupcake Camp, I nearly died and went to heaven upon tasting a red velvet cupcake. I've never been a huge red velvet fan, but this cupcake was chocolately and moist, and was pure bliss.

Yesterday, I went to HomeGoods (my favorite store on Earth) to purchase a mini cupcake tin, and after driving through annoying Somerville traffic and picking out the perfect cupcake tin, I got to the register and realized I had forgotten my wallet! Not the greatest start to a Saturday. I thought about going back yesterday or today, but couldn't bring myself to it. Therefore, I was left with making normal-size cupcakes. Sad. 

Anyway, I am happy to say my first red velvet-making experience was not a disaster, like my first layer cake experience. I somehow managed not to dye anything in the kitchen red (after using an entire bottle of red food dye). The batter was beautiful (see below....)

At my apartment, one of my roommates has a hand mixer, but I usually don't use it because the lowest speed is pretty strong (and therefore generally causes any liquid to cover the kitchen). Normally, to cream butter and sugar I just melt the butter in the microwave and then stir in the sugar. However, for this recipe the batter was pretty lumpy, so I had to use the hand mixer. The mixer was also helpful for the frosting.

BUT great news!!! Yesterday, the KitchenAid Classic stand mixer was on sale for $179 at Macy's, and my mom picked one up for me in Salem, NH (no sales tax!!). It is sitting and waiting for me at home in Andover, where we will happily unite in less than a week when I am home for Easter. I can't wait.

Now, after that long-winded talk about cupcakes, here's the recipe....

For the Cupcakes
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2½ tablespoons red food coloring (I used one 1 oz bottle of it, which is 2 tablespoons)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk (or milk and lemon juice or vinegar, see how to)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons distilled white vinegar

For the Frosting
1 stick butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

For the Cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Turn mixer to high and add the egg. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.

In a separate bowl mix together cocoa powder, vanilla and red food coloring to make a thick paste. Add this to the batter, mixing until completely combined. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.

Turn mixer to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk. Add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining buttermilk and flour. Beat on high until smooth.

Turn mixer to low and add salt, baking soda and vinegar. Turn to high and beat a few more minutes.
Divide the batter evenly into the lined pan and bake for 20-25 minutes (12-15 for minis), or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, and then place on a cooling rack to cool completely.


For the Frosting:
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the butter and cream cheese on medium-high speed until well incorporated and smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl down as necessary. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the confectioners’ sugar until all is incorporated. Increase the speed and whip until the frosting is light and fluffy, scraping the bowl as necessary.

Original recipe here

Baking FAIL.

So, I got a bit overconfident in my baking abilities and decided to make my FIRST layer cake for a work-friend's birthday.
BAD IDEA. I usually do fine trying new recipes, but this was a whole different process than I've ever tried before. Should have stuck with a plain pan-cake (ha, ha).

I found this great moist chocolate cake recipe on foodess.com, and it looked simple enough. The cake-making part was very easy, but when it came to taking the cakes out of the pans, there was epic failure. The cakes stuck to the bottom of my greased non-stick pans and crumbled everywhere.

I tried to fix the problem by covering everything in frosting, but this didn't work out too well.....

I had to make 2 batches of frosting to cover all of the madness, and by the end I had a counter covered in powdered sugar/cocoa powder/lots of crumbly cake, and a cake that looked like a big mound of I-don't-know-what.

Thankfully, everyone at the office thought the cake was delicious, as did I, but this recipe is going to get another shot. I bought 2 circular cake pans, and I WILL make the layer cake work!!

(frosting recipe here)

Valentine Brownie Cut Out Cookies

Flash back to Valentine's Day. I wanted to make sugar cut out cookies around Christmas, but decided not to because my family received a batch from our neighbors, and we had more cookies in the house than we could eat in months (and one of us is gluten-free!). I also received a rolling pin and a pastry sheet for Christmas, and wanted to put them to use. Anyway, along came Valentine's Day, and another excuse for baking. I looked around at many different recipes, and finally stumbled upon this, deciding it was perfect for my chocolate-obsession and an opportunity to use my new tools.

I didn't have all of the ingredients for the royal icing with the cookie recipe and didn't feel like going to the grocery store, so I found one that was simple and that I had the ingredients for. I also had food coloring on hand (from Halloween, long story), which came in handy.

The cookie dough was really easy, but I left out the espresso powder since I didn't have any, and it didn't seem essential. The dough has to be refrigerated for about an hour, which I did not enjoy, but it was well worth the wait.

My roommate Kara has tons of cookie cutters, and I borrowed a few different heart shapes to use. It was pretty easy to roll the dough and cut the cookies, but the recipe does make a lot of cookies, so it took a while to get all of the cookies cut and baked (I enlisted some help from my boyfriend, Dave).

Now for the fun part: icing. I don't particularly enjoy icing things, but these cookies look much better when they are decorated. Maybe someday I can make icing like the photo with the recipe, but that was not an achievable goal for the day. So, I made the royal icing and separated it into three batches to make 3 different colors: white, pink, and red (I just used different amounts of red dye). I started by trying to cover each cookie in icing, but it was too runny and started dripping off most of the cookies. Dave had the bright idea of splattering the cookies with the icing - which ended up looking nice, and was really easy!

Bottom line: these cookies taste like brownies and cookies at the same time. They are phenomenal. Try them.

Original recipe here

Brown Sugar-Hazelnut Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting

I figure my first recipe entry should start on a good note. So, this is a flash back to a few months ago, but this is also one of my greatest baking accomplishments.

I found this recipe on the New York Times potluck page, and it sounded too delicious to pass up. I don’t love cake because I usually find it too dry, and don’t usually choose to bake cake or cupcakes. However, I couldn’t escape the cupcake craze.

So, one weekend last fall I ventured home (to the parents’ house) so I could use all of their fancy baking tools, mainly their KitchenAid mixer (I need to buy one of these soon, but don’t want to shell out the 200 bucks). I wasn’t very optimistic about these cupcakes, but they came out amazingly well. They were very rich, and even though they were so good, I couldn’t eat more than one in a sitting (a rare feeling for me!) So even though the recipe only makes 8 cupcakes, this was actually just enough for me and for sharing. 

Original recipe here