Blue-Eyed Baker: Cupcake-palooza

So last night I was invited to a "Ladies' Night" event at our local chiropractor's office.  I was asked to bring samples and/or a portfolio to show off my work. I, the ever overachiever, brought both.  I prepared myself for a crowd and took 72 mini-cupcakes, three different flavors.

My set-up

I was really excited because I thought I was going to get my name out to a lot of people and maybe have some projects to do over the summer.  Not the case.  I don't think this was their most successful Ladies' Night because the turnout for the vendor show portion was like 4 people.  I left with about 64 of the 72 cupcakes that I took.  Not to mention there were a ton of extras that I left at home.  So now at my house we have stacks on stacks on stacks of cupcakes in the kitchen.  I don't really know what to do with them all.

So here's the Blue-Eyed Baker portion.  I made three flavors, chocolate with peanut butter icing which are the same recipes I used for my Mother's Day Cake, a vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting that wasn't so great so I won't post the recipe (I think for vanilla stuff I will stick to this recipe), and finally a red-velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing.  The red-velvet recipe is from Brown-Eyed Baker.  Like I said I love her stuff.

Red-Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Yield: 12 regular cupcakes or 36 mini-cupcakes

Ingredients:

  For the cupcakes:

•   4 T. unsalted, room temperature butter
• 3/4 c. granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 T. cocoa powder
• 3 T. red food coloring
• 1/2 t. vanilla
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1 c. + 2 T. flour
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1 1/2 t. distilled white vinegar

  For the icing:

• 4 oz. cream cheese
• 4 T. butter
• 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 T. vanilla

How to:

  Cupcakes:

•   Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pans.  
• In a bowl cream together the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes and then add the egg and beat on high until well incorporated.
•   In a separate small bowl mix together the food coloring, vanilla and cocoa powder to form a paste.   Add this mixture to the larger bowl. Make sure all of the batter is incorporated with the red food coloring.
•   With your mixer on low add half of the buttermilk and then half of the flour.  Repeat this step.  Mix on high for an additional minute or so to make sure the batter is smooth.
•   Pour the batter into your cupcake tins and bake for about 20 minutes for regular cupcakes and 11 minutes for mini-cupcakes.
•   Let cupcakes cool for 5-10 minutes in pans and then transfer to a cooling rack.

  Frosting:

•   Cream the butter and cream cheese together.
•   Add the vanilla.
•   Add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.
•   Ice cupcakes when cool as desired.

Your final product should be pretty delicious.  I hope you enjoy! Happy Baking and Happy Thursday!

The red-velvets are on the bottom