Katie's Birthday Cupcakes!

My friend, Katie, turned 21 yesterday. She requested red velvet cupcakes from me, and I gladly obliged!

My mother gave me this recipe, and it turned out GREAT. Everyone loved the cupcakes, and Sara and I loved eating the leftover icing.

So here is the recipe for the cupcakes. This is actually a red velvet CAKE recipe put into a cupcake pan instead of baked as a layered cake.

Cake Recipe:

1 cup of butter (room temperature)

2 ½ cups of cake flour

1 ½ cups of sugar

1 cup of buttermilk

2 eggs

2 teaspoons cocoa (unsweetened)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 oz. coloring

1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1) Cream butter and sugar together

2) Add eggs and blend well (1 at a time)

3) In a separate bowl, combine flour and cocoa. Add a little at a time to butter mixture.

4) Add vinegar, salt, baking soda, vanilla, and buttermilk. Blend well.

5) Add food coloring last.

~ I used neon green food coloring instead of red, because green is Katie's favorite color. It was weird to eat green cupcakes, but they still tasted amazing!

6) Bake cupcakes at 325 degrees for 16 minutes.

~ In my oven, these took a little longer. I filled them up a little too much, so some of them took a little longer to cook all the way. There is a fine line between these being done and getting a little dry, so keep a close eye on them!

Cream Cheese Icing Recipe:

1 box of 10x sugar

1 8 oz. cream cheese package (room temperature)

1 stick of butter (room temperature)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1) Cream sugar, cream cheese, and butter

2) Add vanilla and blend well.

After the cupcakes cooled, I put the icing in a sandwich bag for decorating. I recommend this if you don't have an actual icing bag to use! Cut the tip of the bag, just a little bit. If you cut it too big, too much icing comes out and it is more difficult to control. Icing the cupcakes from the bag allows you to do neat things with it- like flowers, patterns, etc.

This recipe is one of my favorites! I love the icing so much. I hope you'll enjoy it, too!