I'm Baaack with red velvet

Ok.  So back in November when I said I was going to give the blog a little more love over the holidays what I meant was January.  You know, the January holidays.  Ok.  Never mind I'll just be real and tell you November and December kicked my tail this year!  My first major craft show for my little business, my daughter had an accident in November that involved a heavy door, a pinky finger, a lot of blood and a lot of time at doctor offices, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and my husbands 40th birthday.  Followed by the ensuing aftermath of putting real life back in order.  Whew-I'm beat!  I love, love, love the holidays but I will admit to being glad to be able to catch my breath and catch up and blog already!!

As I mentioned my darling husband turned 40 this week.  That's just nuts because I was pretty sure our parents were all 40.  I'm sure of it because I went to their 40th birthday party!  What?!?!  That was 20 years ago. No freakin' way! Where does it go-this time thing!?!

Jenny decorated her daddy's car the night before.  

We had a party with all our family and some long time friends.  We had good food and a good time.  Shane is not a big sweets eater which is why he still looks like he did 20 years ago.  I made him a lemonade pie which is his favorite, but I need cake on a birthday dang it!

So we made red velvet!

I've never made red velvet and didn't have a tried and true recipe to use so I kind of made one up.  I took 3 different recipes and melded them together and here is the result.

This is actually the trial run.  The real ones were much cuter and more 40th birthday-ish.  Black sprinkles and all.  But I forgot to take a picture.  Boo.  The recipe is long and not all that fast to make, but red velvet is sort of a special occasion kind of thing and a little extra time is ok.  I will make this note though- this made a lot of cupcakes-like 30.  One of my pet peeves is that most recipes make 24 cupcakes.  I don't know about y'all but my daughters class always has 25 or 26 kids in it.  This recipe made 30 cupcakes!  Fabulous!

One other note.  A lot of times I use a flour blend like Pamela's, but for this I used several different flours.  I did this because these flours are used in a white cake recipe that I like.  I felt like the cake would be lighter in texture.

One last note.  I'm pulling it all back together and I will be signifigantly more consistant here.  My kiddos have put in some interesting request the last few days and so I've got to get busy.  One of my resolutions is to write more because when I grow up I want to be writer and well, I'm growing up fast so I better get busy!  2012 is going to be awesome!  Now go make red velvet cupcakes!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Mix together :

1 cup white rice flour

1 cup potato starch

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/4 cup buttermilk powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp xantham gum

In the bowl of your mixer mix together:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter- softened

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

In a 3rd bowl (yea I know-lots of dishes)

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 Tbsp. red food coloring

1/2 cup cocoa 

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup milk

2 tsp. vinegar

To the butter/egg/sugar mixture add the sour cream and mix well.  Add in cocoa/food coloring mix. Mix well. Add 1/2 the flour.  Mix. Add 1/2 the milk.  Mix. Repeat.  Add the vingar.  Bake at 350 for about 18 minutes.

Cream cheese frosting.  

2 sticks softened butter

1 block of softened cream cheese

vanilla to taste

milk 

about 3 cups of powdered sugar

Mix butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Add vanilla.  Add in powdered sugar a cup at time.  Add milk until you get the disred consistency.

Enjoy!