Cupcakes Anyone?! Blue Velvet Cream Cheese, Pumpkin Spice Honey Cream Cheese, Chocolate Buttercream

So, I am going to play catch-up with my posting. I have a lot of treats that I made last year but haven't posted about. I'll post them as soon as I can. Stay Tuned...

Back in November....
My little brother's 8th birthday party was outrageous. Hosted at the Jordan Commons IMAX theater, we had some chaotic fun and good treats and then everyone headed into the theater to see Megamind 3-D. Let me just say that I loved it! Entertaining for adults and kids! 4 stars!

Besides having some great entertainment, we had some good eats! I made the cupcakes for his birthday (as is tradition) and had a ton of fun doing it. The party theme was obviously Megamind, who is a blue space villian, so the color blue and stars was the major theme!

I was a baking fool (I baked over 100 cupcakes!). I'm not sure how many actually ended up at the party because Ben had to keep taste testing them for me. He's so sweet like that.....actually I really did make him taste test these because I ended up having to change quite a few of the original recipes. I made Chocolate Cake with Blue Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, Blue Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Pumpkin Spice Cake with Honey Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting. They were fabulous!  Enjoy.

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Blue Velvet Cake with Sweet Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Honey Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Blue Velvet Cake with Sweet Cream Cheese Frosting
Yields: 24 regular cupcakes +  24 mini cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups sugar

½ pound (2 sticks) butter, firm and slightly cold

2 eggs (beaten)

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 tablespoon Wilton royal blue gel food coloring

1 small dab of Wilton violet gel food coloring

2½ cups cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon vinegar

Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

4 oz (1/2 cup) unsalted butter (slightly cold)

4 cups powdered sugar (or less depending on how sweet you like it)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/8 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare cupcake pans with cute paper liners.

Cream together the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs in a slow stream and mix until combined. Mix the cocoa powder and food colorings together to form a thick paste (wear gloves and an apron!), add to the sugar mixture and mix well. Sift together flour and salt. Combine the milk and vanilla in a cup. Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix only until just combined. Add ½ of the buttermilk and mix only until just combined. Again, add 1/3 flour and mix until just combined, then rest of buttermilk mixing until just combined, then finally the last 1/3 of the flour. Mixing until just combined. Try not to overmix or you will get dense cupcakes that may not rise. In a small bowl, combine the baking soda and vinegar (let fizz) and add to mixture and stir until just incorporated.

Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop even amounts of batter into each of the cups. The batter should be thick. Bake for 25-30 minutes for regular cupcakes or 9-10 minutes for mini cupcakes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed beat until incorporated so it doesn’t fly all over like Mt St Helens. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy (a few minutes).

To Decorate:

Place the cream cheese frosting in a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip. The size of the tip will determine the size of your swirls. I used a Wilton 1A. Using 1 hand to squeeze from the top and the other hand to guide, start in the middle of the cupcake and slowly squeeze as you swirl to cover the top of the cupcake with frosting (this should only take about 2 rows of frosting). Once you have covered the whole top continue on to do a second layer slightly smaller than the first but starting on the outside and ending in the middle this time. Pull up to make a cute point at the top.

To make the stars, take your few ugliest plain cupcakes (not that there would be any…;) out of their papers and mash them together so they feel like a dry paste. Flatten it onto some parchment paper as thick as you want your star or other shape to be. Use a cookie cutter or a knife to cut out the desired shape. Carefully peel off the parchment paper and place on the cupcake.

For mini cupcakes: You can use a different technique by squeezing frosting straight down onto the middle of the cupcake top and letting the frosting spread as far to the edge as you want. Pull up still squeezing slightly and then let go pulling straight up.