Valentine's Day Cupcakes

I am about cupcaked out...  I have made TONS of cupcakes lately.  I actually took the time to take pictures on one set of them so I could show you how to make super cute Red Velvet Valentine's Day Cupcakes...and they are very easy to make!!  Click on "READ MORE" to see the full tutorial!

Red Velvet Cake Ingredients:

~ 1 Stick (1/2) cup unsalted butter or shortening, softened

~ 1 1/2 cups sugar

~ 2 large eggs

~ 3 TBS red food coloring

~ 2 tsp cocoa powder

~ 1 tsp salt

~ 1 cup buttermilk

~ 1 tsp vanilla extract

~ 2 3/4 cups cake flour

~ 1 TBS vinegar

~ 1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line your cupcake pans with any type of cute cupcake liners (I chose red with white polk-a-dots).
In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  It should look something like this...

In a small bowl whisk together food coloring, cocoa powder, and salt, then add to butter/sugar mixture, beating until blended.  In another small bowl, stir together buttermilk and vanilla and set aside (don't add to our "red" mixture yet).

Add flour to butter mixture in batches alternately with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating until the batter is blended well.

After you have everything thoroughly mixed, this is the part where you dunk your finger in to try it out.  Oh yeah, good stuff!!

In another small bowl, combine vinegar and baking soda, then GENTLY stir into batter, DO NOT BEAT!!

Scoop into paper liners, filling a little over 1/2 way.

Bake at 350 for approx 18 min, or until a tester comes out clean.

Now for the frosting....  Nothing goes better on Red Velvet than a delicious cream cheese frosting!

Here's what we'll need:

~ 1 pound of cream cheese, softened
~ 2 sticks of butter, softened
~ 1 tsp vanilla extract
~ 4 cups (give or take) of sifted confectioners sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together until smooth.  Gradually add the sugar, beating on low speed until incorporated.  Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.  I'm not really a fan of extremely sweet frosting, so you can add more sugar if you would like your frosting to be sweeter.  Here's what the texture of your frosting should look like....  Oh, and yes, you dunk your finger here too :)

You can create the swirls by using a piping bag, or just simply using a plain ol' Ziploc.  Either way you will need to use a pretty big tip (or cut about a marble sized hole for you Ziplocer's).  Start your swirl on the outside, ending in the middle.

I decorated mine with red and white polk-a-dot pics, small pearls, and red candy hearts.  Be creative, but most importantly, ENJOY!!!

  ~ Lynse'