I decided to make them from scratch (Also, this was a last minute thing and the grocery stores and Wal-Mart on this side of town do not carry the red velvet box mix!). I remembered how much I wanted to try out recipes from Joy the Baker. She has this cupcake recipe called 'My Favorite Red Velvet Cupcakes'. How could I resist?!
This definitely look me a long time. I hate making a mess, so I constantly cleaned up as I went. I almost wondered if all the energy and work I put in was worth it. I mean, the finale of The Office was on! I started at 7:30ish, but took a break to wait for the icing and cupcakes to chill and iced the cupcakes during the later half of Parks and Recreation.
Was it worth it? Yes!
I basically followed the recipe she adapted and listed on her web site. I used fat free cream cheese instead of regular and skipped the cinnamon in the cream cheese icing. I wish I could get the icing all thick and high, but this was still tasty. The recipe for each called for one dozen. I doubled the red velvet recipe because I wanted to sprinkle powdered sugar and make half of them different. I thought I could control myself by eating one. I used myfooddiary.com to calculated them to be 136 (Plus 46 with icing) for each cupcake. Pretty good, huh?
I would have, if I ate only one. But, of course, I ate two, plus a lot of icing licking!!! I got gel icing to write happy birthday, but it looked weird when I tested it on a couple non icing cupcakes. And the icing cupcakes are too pretty to write on. On well, I hope my family enjoys how pretty and tasty they are! :)
I am so glad I discovered Joy the Baker and hope to make more recipes from her site!!!
It is now way past my bed time...