Baking ALWAYS wins

Once again I've been hit with another bad case of procrastibaking. This is ignorance at its worst finest. What splendorous recipe is calling my name this time?

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I searched high and low for the perfect recipe and finally found one on The Food Network by Paula Deen. Usually before trying a recipe I take a quick look over the comments/reviews and I'm SO glad I did because I ended up changing quite a few things in the recipe. And don't worry, I've already gotten the thumbs up from my two roomies, my parents and my sister (who took a boulanger and baking arts course) so they're safe ;).

If you would like to try these revised cupcakes you will need:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or 1 1/2 Tbsp vinegar + enough milk to make 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 large eggs
• 4 Tbsp red food colouring
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Mix all dry ingredients together.

3. Mix all wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. And yes, this includes the massive volumes of red food colouring!

4. Sift the dry ingredients and mix with wet ingredients until well-combined.

5. Spoon into lined cupcake pan (batter was quite runny for me but turned out perfectly in the end).

6. Bake for 20 minutes.

And what are cupcakes without frosting? I added the cream cheese frosting included in Paula Deen's recipe and just decreased the sugar by 1 cup...it was still plenty sweet! Also, this made a TON of frosting!! I would suggest doing only half of the recipe below and you will still have leftovers. I guess it's incentive to make another batch in the near future :).

For the cream cheese frosting you will need:

• 2 blocks of cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (original called for 4 cups...eek!)

 Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Add sifted confectioner's sugar and mix on low until incorporated. Then, beat on high until light and fluffy.

Now for the fun part: ice the cupcakes and sprinkle with red sprinkles if you so desire!

Finally, eat and enjoy!