{i heart red velvet cupcakes}

red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. {drool}. i served them at my wedding in lieu of wedding cake because of my love for red velvet cupcakes. the proverbial question is "what is in red velvet cake?" i like to see it as a hybrid between a vanilla and chocolate cake. its composition includes cocoa powder, vanilla extract, buttermilk, red food coloring. there is a frightening amount of red food coloring that is used...brushing your teeth after eating one of these babies looks like your spitting out blood. hehehe. ok, maybe thats a little dramatic. but, here's an interesting factoid though-red dye (natural food coloring) can be made from extracting a dried female cochineal insect. {will you ever think of red colored foods the same again?}

A friend, Natalie C, received a tin of Sprinkles red velvet cupcake mix as a gift. Delightfully, she decided to come over for the holidays and make this with me, using my trusty fire-engine red KitchenAid mixer. Surprisingly, the mix turned out exactly like the ones at Sprinkles. It is a little cheaper than going to Sprinkles, but you have to buy quite a bit of ingredients. And why do their cupcakes taste so yummy? Butter! A little twist on their frosting recipe was that I added a touch of vanilla bean paste to the cream cheese. Not only yummy, but also looks nice with the bean specks! Anyways, its a fun gift and the results were...delish! and they even come with those adorable colored dots that taste like cardboard!! :)