Red, White and Blue!

   
     Happy Fourth of July everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying having some time off to spend with friends and family on this rainy St. Louis day!
     I thought that this Fourth of July I would try my hand at making red velvet cupcakes. I have never made a red velvet cake before (and I've actually tried very few) but I thought that they would look festive for the holiday. Plus, between our two families, I knew that my two dozen cupcakes would be happily consumed! I finally settled on a Paula Deen recipe from FoodNetwork.com (the woman knows her sweets so I figured it would be a safe bet). Here are the ingredients you need for both the red velvet cake and the cream cheese frosting:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

You start by mixing the wet ingredients for the cake batter with an electric mixer, then incorporating the sifted dry ingredients a little at a time. Fill your cupcake tins 2/3 of the way full and bake at 350 degrees for about twenty minutes. I was very surprised at how RED the batter was!

     For the frosting, you simply beat the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla extract together until creamy and then slowly incorporate the powdered sugar. I decided that I would keep my frosting white, and then add blue sprinkles so that I would have red, white, and blue cupcakes (festive)!

      I also found these cute cupcake wrappers at Michaels in both red and blue to add to the "holiday flair."

     And here's the finished product!

     The cupcakes turned out very cute and were absolutely delicious! Kolby described them as very "classic" and I couldn't agree more! This was definitely a "keeper" for my cupcake recipe collection! Happy Fourth everyone!