Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

My good friend Angie brought me a dozen doughnuts to the hospital when I had Gabriel and Cassidy. I called her a couple of months ago to let her know I wanted to return the favor with cupcakes when she had her sweet new little baby. She requested red velvet piled high with delicious cream cheese frosting.

My red velvet cake recipe is a family recipe passed down from Cassidy's Great Mam-ma, so I won't be sharing it. Sorry! The cream cheese frosting is a recipe I just made up by throwing stuff in a bowl. It's just butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. It would be really delicious to eat a big bowl of it by the spoonful while relaxing in a candlelit bath. I would never do that, though. That's just a fantasy of someone who's been on a diet for a really long time!

These cupcakes were really good. However, cupcakes with cream cheese frosting is not how I grew up eating red velvet cake. It's meant to be in a 3-layer cake layered with this amazing cooked butter icing (also a secret family recipe). The cooked butter icing is not thick enough to be piped onto a cupcake, though, and my sweet friend asked for cream cheese frosting. She had a baby. She should get whatever she wants.

 Combining cocoa and red food coloring

 Combining shortening and sugar

 Adding the red cocoa mixture

 Mixing

 Delicious red chocolate buttermilk cake batter

 The cupcakes are out of the oven!

 

 Piped with cream cheese frosting

A little creativity . . . baked some cupcakes right inside these baby food jars,

piped the frosting in, screwed on the lid, and tied a blue ribbon for

the new little baby boy.

Cassidy takes a taste.

It's good! It's good!

 

 "Get in my belly!"

 

Mommy and Cassidy snuggle baby Ryland

while his mommy has a cupcake.

Cassidy's Cream Cheese Frosting

2 blocks cream cheese

2 sticks unsalted butter

2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

6 cups powdered sugar (more or less depending on desired consistency)

The Battle of the Cupcake

Cassidy participated in her first cupcake competition at the 2012 Vanderburgh County 4-H Fair in Evansville, IN. It was the very first "Battle of the Cupcake." Cupcakes and frosting were to be premade and brought in as well as a display with no specified theme. The cupcakes needed to be frosted, decorated, and arranged in the display in less than one hour. We decided to do the chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter and marshmallow buttercream frosting since we knew it was so incredibly delicious and likely flavors that most would enjoy. We also thought we needed to add a filling to the cupcakes since that is very popular these days.

Well, we tried our best . . .

 Cassidy is cute as a cupcake and ready for some fun!

 Our display: pictures of Cassidy baking cupcakes 

with the cupcakes arranged on a bottle drying rack.

 Chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate buttercream filling,

topped with peanut butter, swirled with marshmallow buttercream

frosting, and topped with a fondant baby bottle.

 

Mommy made these fondant baby bottles.

 Baby bottle cupcakes

 Mommy and Cassidy are always having fun!

We didn't get a ribbon, but who cares when you've got a kid this cute?

So, here's what happened. The judges' comments were that our cupcakes were "Oh, so good!" BUT, it was really hot in the building we were in, and our buttercream melted right off the cupcakes. I know! I'm just like the bakers on Cupcake Wars who crumble under the pressure of stiff competition. I was so embarrassed! I knew they tasted good, but there was no way I could win with the frosting sliding off the cupcakes. I'm assuming the other competitors used a canned frosting or one made with shortening. I didn't want to do that, though. I say, "Go homemade or go home!" I was the only one that made fondant decorations, so I was really proud of myself. I think Cassidy was proud of me, too.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting

 Chocolate cupcakes with a Hershey's kiss baked into the center, topped with a layer of yummy peanut butter and swirled with marshmallow vanilla buttercream frosting. Biting into this cupcake, you get the oh-so-moist chocolate cake, followed by the marshmallowy sweetness of the vanilla buttercream frosting. Then, as your teeth close in on the cupcake, the thick and creamy peanut butter fills your mouth and takes the whole experience over the top. Finally, when you eat your way to the center, you finish with a slightly softened bite of chocolate from the Hershey's Kiss. Want one yet?

 

The wet ingredients come up to room temperature while Cassidy 

takes a power nap: skim milk (that's what we always have in the

fridge), grape jelly, mayonnaise, egg whites, and vanilla.

Then, we sifted the dry ingredients, blended them well, and combined them with the wet ingredients: white sugar, all-purpose flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

 

Hershey's chocolate Kisses and white chocolate Hugs

are baked into the center of the cupcakes. We just 

sat them on top of the batter, and the cake baked around them.

 

A peanut butter swirl makes them decadent.

 

Swirled with marshmallow vanilla buttercream and garnished with 

a peanut glazed in simple syrup.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut

butter and marshmallow buttercream 

frosting.

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup white sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 tsp baking soda

1 egg white

1 cup water or milk

2 TBSP grape jelly (room temp)

1 cup mayonnaise (room temp)

  2 tsp vanilla extract

 1/4 tsp salt

Marshmallow Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

7 cups powdered sugar

2 sticks softened unsalted butter

7 TBSP milk

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 bag marshmallows, melted, cooled, and mixed into frosting

***A note to the reader: Cassidy Babycakes was unable to appear in this blog post or its photos. She was too busy GETTING INTO EVERYTHING!!!