Cream Cheese Filled Red Velvet Cupcakes Part II

The Final Result!

This is it! The final result. I'm mostly pleased with the result. The cake is moist, the icing is fluffy. And I think they look great except for too much coloring in the icing. I went a little crazy with the food dye gel in the pastry bag for the icing. I put  4 stripes of gel in the bag. Next time I will only do 2 stripes of gel for just a hint of color in the icing.

I had my daughter Jennica taste test and critique the first cupcake. (I had her take out the factor that I'm her mother)  She loved it.

I've taught my entire family to be amateur food critics. They all know to first notice the entire look of the baked good, the smell, the texture, the level of moistness, the icing consistency and taste. Then the combinations of flavors in the first bite. So far they have been pretty honest with me. Oh, believe me, if they don't like something they let me know. I have a very vocal and opinionated family. Which of course I love and value them for that.

Cream Cheese Filled Red Velvet Cupcakes

What a day! Long day of work and a 5 mile bike ride with my husband. (we stopped half way through our bike ride to catch a bite of fair food at the Ashtabula County Fair) Oh man, was it delicious! I had a gyro and fair french fries. Yummy!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I thought long and hard about what kind of cupcakes do I want to make next. Red Velvet Cupcakes won out! I've always held back making red velvet cupcakes just because of all the food dye that needs to go into the recipe to achieve the color. I keep hearing red velvet this red velvet that, so, I wanted to taste what all the hooplah is all about. The heck with the food dye. I tried once using beet juice in the recipe instead of food dye. It didn't work. They were light brown. And I just couldn't get past knowing that there was beet juice in it. It just wasn't appetizing to me.

So, coming tomorrow will be pictures of the final result....cream cheese filled red velvet cupcakes iced with fluffy cream cheese frosting and a white chocolate garnishment. As always, it's my goal for my cupcakes to not only be so moist, but to look and taste WOW.  Hopefully I will be able to achieve that tomorrow when I finish these.

Banana Split Cupcakes

This is it! My first try. I rolled the edges of the cupcake into the sprinkles. It didn't come out as neat as I wanted it to be. Next time I will just sprinkle the sprinkles onto the melted chocolate. But, they do look like little mini banana splits. And, oh man,  they are scrumptious! Now, all I have left to do with these is find a home for them.

Banana split cupcakes

All day long, all I could think about was how I couldn't wait to get home from work to start on making these cupcakes. Well, finally at 10:00 pm I made the cupcakes. The really fun part, icing and embellishing these little banana cake gems, that will have to wait until tomorrow. . .
Tomorrow I will core out the middle of the cupcake, fill it with strawberry filling, ice with vanilla butter cream, dip into chocolate then the edge with candy sprinkles, top with more vanilla butter cream and a maraschino cherry. OOOh, these babies will have a million calories in each one.

The recipe called for 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup of shortening. I used all butter.
It also called for 1/2 cup buttermilk. Which I did not have, so, as a substitute, I used a little less than 1/2 cup of milk mixed with about a tablespoon of lemon juice.  (works just the same as buttermilk)
So far, the cupcakes taste delicious. Let's see if I can make them look WOW. I will post a picture of the final result tomorrow.

Chocolate cherry cola cupcakes

Oooh, I made these chocolate cherry cola cupcakes  with fluffy pink cream cheese icing, topped with a maraschino cherry and chocolate magic shell. The cake was soo moist, the icing was cream cheesy, sweet and fluffy. Perfecto and yummy. And, they looked great!

This batch of cupcakes went to work with my husband. They were a hit.

Bonus: my kitchen smelled so good. Who needs candles!

Fluffy cream cheese icing

1 - 8 oz. cream cheese softened (Philadelphia brand)

1 - cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 large container of cool whip (Cool whip brand)

Whip cream cheese in mixer, add the powdered sugar and granulated sugar until well blended, add cool whip until well blended.  You can add a flavoring of choice, or food coloring at this point. I just added a few drops of red food dye for the pink coloring.