Hello everyone! Sorry for being MIA for a while. Long story short I’ve been to take life day by day for the past two weeks because of personal problems. I feel a bit silly because things could be so much worse and I have no right to complain and it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before, but I had to take time off to be alone and sort myself out. Anyway I’m going to be fine and I’m planning to post more about all that’s been going on sometime next week, but for now I wanted to share something fun for the upcoming Halloween weekend and Dia de Los Muertos.

I really can’t take any credit for this recipe as I simply went and snagged it off allrecipes. Honestly, if you’ve learnt anything from reading my posts by now you know I am hopeless at baking and will forever need to look up recipes for any dessert I want to make. Haha, I can only take credit for thinking red velvet cupcakes would be all too appropriate for some spoopy themed desserts!

Not So Spooky Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Ingredients:
2½ Cups Flour
½ Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
½ Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Butter (Softened)
2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 Cup Sour Cream
½ Cup Whole Milk
1 Ounce Red Food Coloring
2 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

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Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Start by whisking together your flour (I used Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Baking Flour), cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli Chocolate 100% Unsweetened Cocoa), baking soda and salt, in a medium bowl. Set your dry ingredient mix aside for later.

**Small side note, Ghirardelli’s cocoa powder is made in a facility that also processes tree nuts, wheat, soy, milk, and eggs so it is not gluten free certified. I haven’t had a reaction so far, but just in case anyone with Celiac wants to try these I would recommend using a different cocoa powder.

3. In a large bowl beat together your butter and sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes. As a side note I seriously, seriously need to buy a new hand mixer. I’m pretty sure there is no difference between the low speed and super high hurricane-esk level speed on mine.

4. Once the butter and sugar have become fluffy in texture beat in your eggs one at a time.

5. After all the eggs are incorporated whisk in your cream, milk, food coloring, and vanilla.

6. Now time to combine your wet ingredients and dry ingredients. Beat your dry ingredients into the wet mixture on low speed about a half cup at a time – do this only so the ingredients are just blended together, be careful not to over beat the cupcake mix. To be perfectly honest I’m not sure what will happen if you do over beat the mixture, but the recipe stressed not to do it (gremlins might jump out maybe, who knows.)

7. Spoon your batter into paper-lined muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. I did this easily using my trusty ice cream disher. Pop your cupcakes into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

8. Once your cupcakes are finished baking take them out of the pan and move them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

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Ingredients:

1 (8 Ounce) Package Cream Cheese, Softened
¼ Cup Butter, Softened
2 Tablespoons Sour Cream
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
3½ Cups Baker’s Sugar

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Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl beat together your cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla extract for around 5 minutes. Once your frosting is smooth and has turned light in color gradually beat your sugar in half cup increments.

2. Now the fun part, time to decorate! To start I used a Wilton 2A icing tip to add the cream cheese frosting to the top of my cupcakes. Then I topped the frosting with black, green, orange, and purple sprinkles and tiny sugar skull decorations I found at Target.

All together I think these cupcakes turned out adorable and super tasty – I’ll definitely be bringing these to friends places to share for the holiday! They certainly aren’t perfect… most notably they’re more of a brownish purple than a blood red, but what can you do? I do love how they taste though! The cupcakes themselves are super fluffy and scrumptiously chocolaty plus the icing is only slightly sweet with a nice tartness from the cream cheese. The chocolate and cream cheese combination is truly delicious. If you’re looking for something yummy to make for Halloween give these a go, I hope you enjoy them too!