Chocolate Cupcakes with Red Velvet Frosting

It's almost Valentine's Day!

But I don't have a valentine so I'll be eating these cupcakes. Alone. Crying.

Just kidding!!

I actually made these as a thank you gift but I couldn't give them to the people I needed to thank so I had to make another batch. What a shame.

Also, it's a bumer that I've taken so long to blog! I actually did bake between January and now, but... uhh... I kinda sorta might have forgotten to add sugar to some cookies.

"Excuse me?" you say? "You forgot to add sugar. To cookies. Really?"

Yeah. I know. But looking back at the recipe they probably wouldn't have been very good with sugar either. They're supposed to be chocolate cookies then you sandwich them with mocha frosting between, but the cookies don't have egg or vanilla so they would have been, and were, really crumbly. So I cut my losses and accepted those as me not picking recipes carefully enough.

But back to these cupcakes, I did pick the recipe carefully! It's from Cookies and Cups and she made them as whoopie pie cupcakes, which were so cute I might add. 

I didn't make mine whoopie pies, but my friend from the Periodic Table cookies actually made red velvet whoopie pies, so there's that. And I think that my cupcakes look like Valentines roses!

Wouldn't it be great to get a bouquet of cupcakes? I know you could do a bouquet of cake pops or festively cut cantaloupe or twizzlers but cupcakes? I'm sure someone has done it.

I'm pretty sure I've never written the word cantaloupe before. It looks really weird. 

But anywho, these cupcakes are not only really really adorable, they're also absolutely delicious! They're really moist and light, but not in a falling apart or dripping wet kind of way. It might be my new favorite chocolate cake recipe!

Pre Bake

Post Bake

Recipe (from Cookies and Cups):

Cupcake

1 cup cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brewed coffee
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Mix together sugar, oil, coffee and buttermilk. Add in egg and vanilla and mix again. Add in dry ingredients and beat for 3 minutes. Fill cupcake liners 1/2 way full and bake for 20 minutes at 325.

Frosting

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup Red Velvet Cake Mix
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk (you probably will need more)

Beat all the ingredients until smooth.

I used about 1/2 a cup of milk to get the frosting to the right consistency for me. Don't break your mixer trying to beat something too thick.

Also, this recipe makes a lot of frosting, so you might want to halve it. I got 21 cupcakes (the recipe said 15) and used 1/2 of the frosting for all of them. Then I made them again and got 12 regular size and 24 mini cupcakes. So it's versatile and delicious!