In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve not only been dabbling in the creation of button flower arrangements, lately, but also in the baking of cupcakes. Here are a few of the ones I recently made and was quite excited about!

Clockwise: Vanilla Easter Flower; Chocolate with Cherry Butter Cream; Chocolate Butterscotch (filled) with Butterscotch Butter Cream; Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting

I was most excited to share this most recent one (Red Velvet)  because it seemed daunting to make prior to, but I did it! And, I did it because I promised someone that I would, and I had to follow through, after all! 

It was around a month ago that I was visiting with our sweet babysitter of 7 years about her upcoming 18th birthday. She was commenting on how nice Chris’s birthday cupcakes had turned out (they are the ones with the Rolo on top) so I announced to her that I would bake her cupcakes for her birthday, whatever kind she wanted, I would do it! When she said her favorite was Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting, I thought that might be a tall order from me, the novice baker, but I would make it happen!

I researched a lot…ok, not a lot…but enough. It helped that I entered my Google search as: the best Red Velvet Cupcake recipe. That way maybe I could weed out the mediocre ones in the beginning! Well, I came up with this recipe from BrownEyedBaker.com: Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Not that I have anything to compare it too, but I would declare that this is the best one I have ever tasted! This recipe will be my go-to Red Velvet recipe from now on! I decided this time to not list each step that I went through in making them, but just highlight noteworthy bits from my experience.

I was to mix the cocoa powder with 3 tablespoons of red food coloring. That’s A LOT! I actually didn’t even have enough, so I added some blue to the mix and thought that maybe purple velvet would be acceptable if that is how it turned out.

But then I just decided that what I had was enough and added the reddish/blue cocoa mixture to the rest of the batter. Well, it didn’t look red enough (you agree don’t you?), so I rummaged through the pantry to thankfully find this red color gel that I could just throw in some on top.

I mixed it all up and was pleased with the color!

But then the recipe called for white vinegar and that rustled my feathers just a little, because as you might be able to see here, it bubbled all up and the smell reminded me of junior high science class…go figure…but not the best smell to associate with the baking of edible cupcakes. Moving on…

Pleased with the finished batter, I used my cookie dough scoop to fill the cupcake cups. I have found this to be even more useful than the scoop’s intended purpose!

After the cupcakes cooled completely, I frosted them with Cream Cheese Frosting, using one of my largest piping tips from my Wilton kit (I won’t begin to try and use all that jargon because I don’t yet know what it means, just that the big one works best!).

I find that it gives a nice, wide ribbon-y look.

I knew from the get-go that I wanted to put mini-chocolate chips on top of these cupcakes and I think they looked just perfect!

They were a little hard to keep on at first, but the crevices in the frosting helped.

I found these adorable cupcake boxes, made by Wilton, at Walmart! A 3-pack, even! I couldn’t resist adding the bow, either!

After I showed them to my husband, he asked if they were any good! I hadn’t yet tasted them, so I was anxious to make sure they weren’t too vinegar-y and tasted as good as they looked!

Well, they not only looked nice, but tasted perfect and had a very moist texture. As my boys were enjoying one for their dessert, Logan asked why they are called Red Velvet Cupcakes. Good question! I answered him to the best of my ability, which was really just my best guess, because I don’t actually know. But I told him that velvet is a kind of deep red, very soft fabric…and before I could finish my explanation, he jumped up, followed by his brother, and began running through the living room, flailing his arms around and shouting, “Ahhhh! We’re eating fabric!”

I am without words. But I think the fabric was well-received because they were eaten all up!