Another Twist on Red Velvet Cupcakes!

Red Velvet Cake Layered with White Chocolate Cheesecake Topped with Cream Cheese Icing


I have a thing for Red Velvet Cake, but for some reason, I always need to change it up a bit, plain red velvet just isn't quite good enough. (See my Black Velvet Cupcakes and Southern Comfort Red Velvet Cupcakes).

Well, for valentine's day I had to make Red Velvet Cupcakes, but I decided that white chocolate would go well with Red Velvet. So, I went searching for a white chocolate red velvet cupcake and I found this recipe: Red Velvet White Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes from the Real Women of Philadelphia.

I altered it a bit, the changes are reflected below. I also found these cute chocolate mold on Amazon a few weeks ago: heart mold. They were supposed to be pink, but of course Wal-Mart only had Red and Orange candy melts, so red they were.

They actually turned out super cute! and delicious too!

The makes 12 cupcakes. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. 

White Choc. Cheesecake Batter:

• 8 ounces of cream cheese, (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 3 tbsp. of beaten egg 
• 1 tbsp. of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips

1. Combine cream cheese with sugar, beaten egg, vanilla until thoroughly blended. 
2. Add in white chocolate chips and set aside. 

Red Velvet Cake Batter:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/3 cup of cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 2/3 cup of canola oil
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 1/2 tbsp. of red food coloring
• 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. of baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. of white balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.
2. In a large bowl, blend the oil and sugar together then add the egg and mix well. 
3. Add the red food color, mix carefully then add the vanilla and stir in.
4. Add one third of the flour mix, stir to just blend.
5. Add half of the buttermilk and another third of the flour mix and stir until just blended.
6. Add the other half of the buttermilk and the remaining flour and stir until just blended.
7. Mix the baking soda and vinegar together in a small dish (it should foam up) and the add to the batter stirring to make sure all dry ingredients have been combined.

Cream Cheese Icing:

• 12 ounces cream cheese (1.5 8 oz. blocks)
• 4 tbsp. of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 tbsp. of crisco
• 2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 4 cup of powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. of buttermilk

1. Combine butter with the crisco until completely blended.
2. Add the vanilla and mix well.
3. Add 1/2 of an 8 oz block of cream cheese and 1 cup of confectioner's sugar
4. Add 1/2 tsp buttermilk, 1/2 of an 8 oz.block of cream cheese and one cup of confectioner's sugar
5. Add 1/2 tsp buttermilk, 1/2 of an 8 oz.block of cream cheese and one cup of confectioner's sugar
6. Add an additional cup of powdered sugar or more until you reach the desired consistency.

Kind of a bad picture, but you can see the layered cheesecake!

To assemble:

1. Line a muffin tin with liners
2. Spoon 1 heaping Tablespoon of Red Velvet Batter into each cup. 
3. Then Spoon 1 heaping Tablespoon of Cheesecake into each cup.
4. Top with another heaping Tablespoon Red Velvet Batter. 
5. Bake 23 minutes in 350 degree oven. 
6. Rest in pan for 5 minutes then remove from pan and place in freezer for 5 minutes. 
7. let cool the rest of the way on a wire rack and frost with icing. 
8. top with a candy molded heart pick. 

These turned out great! Recipe is definitely a keeper and Sean's co-workers are lucky this Valentine's Day!

Actually, Sean rates all my cupcakes on a scale of 1 to 10, and these earned a 9! Just below my Chocolate Xtreme Cupcakes!

SoCo Red Velvet Cupcakes

Southern Comfort Red Velvet Cupcakes from the Boozy Baker Cookbook!

My cousin gave me the Boozy Baker cookbook awhile back and I have never tried anything from it before! Well, I was really bored last night and decided to give it a go. I love Southern Comfort and happened to have a bottle in my cabinet, so I went with the Red Velvet Cake and turned it into cupcakes.

Now, this recipe was for a cake, and called for 3 eggs, so unfortunately it couldn't be cut in half! I ended up with 24 cupcakes and some leftover batter! I probably could have cut it into thirds, but oh well. 

Red Velvet Cake:

• 3 cups cake flour
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup Southern Comfort (I added a splash more)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 (1-ounce) bottle red food coloring
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
2. Whisk together the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. 
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, Southern Comfort, vanilla, vinegar, and food coloring.
4. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. 
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
6. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk mixture in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.
7. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pans on a wire rack, and then remove them from the pans and cool completely.

The buttermilk mixture was very very RED!

Frosting (I cut the recipe in half and had plenty):

• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1/8 cup Southern Comfort (I added a splash more, but probably shouldn't have)

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes. 
2. Add confectioners’ sugar, the milk, and the Southern Comfort. 
3. Beat on low speed until creamy.

This was a very dense cupcake, perfect crumb!

I loved the cake part of this recipe! You could taste the subtle flavor of Southern Comfort in it and the cake was the perfect consistency. 

As for the frosting, I should have stuck with the recipe, because it had waaaay too much booze in it! I think I probably would have used a different buttercream recipe and added the SoCo in. Was not a big fan of the frosting. 

Texas Tech Cupcakes

Black Velvet Cupcakes with Red Cream Cheese Frosting


I'm going down to visit my brother and watch him play in the band for Texas Tech University, so I decided to make a 'Go Tech' cupcake! They are the Red Raiders, with colors of Black and Red.

I altered a blue velvet cupcake recipe from Sprinkle Bakes for this recipe.

My "Red" Frosting looks pink!

Black Velvet Cupcakes (adapted from Sprinkle Bakes)
makes 24-28 cupcakes

• 2 C sugar
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 T Cocoa Powder
• 1 T black food coloring
• 2 1/2 C cake flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 C buttermilk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 T white vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare cupcake pan(s) with paper liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter, mix until light and fluffy. 
3. Add the eggs 1 at a time and mix well after each addition. 
4. Mix cocoa and food coloring together to form a paste, and then add to sugar mixture; mix well. 
5. Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. 
6. Blend in vanilla. 
7. In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture.
8. Scoop batter into tins. Bake for 25-30 minutes

This recipe made a very dense cupcake with a tight crumb, you definitely need a glass of milk with these!

See how dense they are!

Red Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 lb cream cheese
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 4 C powdered sugar
• Red Food Coloring, to color.

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and food coloring together until smooth. 
2. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. 
3. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy. 
4. Pipe frosting onto cupcakes using a large round tip. I used tip #1A

I had a really hard time getting the frosting to look red, I used a ton of gel food coloring, maybe it would have worked better had I used liquid coloring.

I  melted down some white chocolate and piped out  "Go Tech!" and the TT Logo to garnish. The white chocolate melts very quickly, so I had to transfer them quickly from the freezer to the cupcakes.

The Finished Product