Thursday, February 9, 2012

Red Velvet with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting {Recipe}

 photo thenewbakingmemoirs_zps410cbd72.jpg
As I looked through all the dessert ideas for Valentine's Day people have posted on Pinterest I didn't see this combination and decided to see if it would work. It works! And both pink and red for Valentine's just fits perfectly. And red velvet is just a red chocolate cake so you even get your Valentine's chocolate fix from this. But let me tell you, I had quite the adventure just to test this recipe out and get the photo above. 

Because I am trying not to overdo the sweets I first needed an excuse to make these. I was just hoping that one would present itself before Valentine's day. Lucky for me it did. We were invited to a little birthday dinner celebration for a relative of Sione's. She loves my cupcakes so I knew this was the opportunity that I'd been waiting for. But there was a little bit of a dilemma; the dinner gathering wasn't until 2:30pm and we were also going to their ward for her first son's baby blessing that morning at 10am. This would all be taking place on the other side of the island and there would be family visiting from Utah, Vegas, and Tonga, so we weren't planning to go back home just for cupcakes.  
Some of the family
So do you see my dilemma? How was I supposed to keep the frosting from melting or spoiling in the sun? If we were still living in Utah it would probably be cold enough outside, but as you can see from the picture above it was very warm and sunny. 
Baby and birthday girl
Well, here's what I did...but it didn't exactly work. I ended up making the frosting ahead of time and freezing it the night before. Than, I put it in a cooler. I had planned to frost the cupcakes right before the dinner. We left our house around 8:45am. Right after the baby blessing we went and took some family pictures. By the time we were through it was around noon. I went to the car to check on the frosting and it had defrosted to the perfect consistency. 

The family had a vacation rental near by and so the frosting had to survive just a little while longer so I could get it into the refrigerator.  We didn't know where the rentals were so we had to wait to follow someone there. Long story short, by the time we got to the rentals and to a refrigerator the frosting had melted. I tried to save it by refreezing it...it firmed up a bit but it was still super runny even after an hour in the freezer. Sad. But I could still spoon some frosting on. Luckily I had kept a couple of extra frosted cupcakes home for myself and was able to get at least one good picture of the completed cupcake. Look at that melted mess...

But I guess when a cupcake has a reputation, it doesn't matter how it looks because within 10 minutes of people learning that the cupcakes had been made by me all 2 dozen were gone. I hadn't even finished eating my dinner yet.  There are many morals to this story : Don't judge a cupcakes taste by its looks; this frosting will melt after 4 hours even if you freeze it ahead of time; always keep an extra cupcake hidden for yourself because you may not get to eat one if you don't.


Red Velvet Cupcake
Ingredients:
1 box of red velvet cake mix
1 (5.9 oz.) package of chocolate pudding
1 Cup sour cream
1 Cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 Cup warm water

Directions:
1)Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Combine all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
3) Spoon mixture into lined cupcake pan. Fill liners about 3/4 full.
4) Bake for 18 to 20 minutes.
5) Allow them to completely cool before frosting.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1 Cup of butter
1 8 oz tub of whipped cream
1 Cup powdered sugar
6 Tbs pureed strawberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions:
1) Cream together everything but pureed strawberries.
2) Mix in pureed strawberries.

Happy Baking!
 photo thenewbakingmemoirs_zps410cbd72.jpg

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