Two Words: Red Velvet

One of Irma's favorite recipes is Martha Stewart's Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe. With a smooth cream cheese frosting on top, you can't go wrong! Here's an easy but delicious recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes (thanks, Martha!!):

CAKE:

2 1/2 cups CAKE FLOUR (not self- rising), sifted --> You can find this in the Supermarket where all the other flour is. The one we have comes in a box.
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon red GEL-paste food color (GEL, not liquid!! you don't want to water-down your batter)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Directions: (pay attention to step 5, it's important that you do it just the way it says!)
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.
2.Whisk together cake flour, cocoa, and salt in a bowl.
3. IN A DIFFERENT BOWL, With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.
4. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.
5. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.
****Here is the recipe from Martha's Website:****
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/red-velvet-cupcakes

FROSTING:

As for the cream cheese frosting, we just know this recipe... it isn't from a site, but you can probably find it somewhere as we didn't invent the recipe for cream cheese frosting. Here is what is always in our bowl:
1 stick of butter (soft, but not melted)
1 8-oz package of Cream Cheese (room temperature, if it isn't then nuke it for a couple seconds. You don't want it hot though)
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Put the cream cheese in the bowl and beat it for 1 minute. Add the butter in 1-tbsp size pieces and mix completely. Add the vanilla and mix. Add the sugar, 1 cup at a time and mix until it's smooth. If it's not smooth enough, add more powdered sugar little by little until it is.

These aren't that hard to make but are always delicious! Oh, and if you don't have buttermilk, you can mix 1 tbsp of white vinegar OR lemon juice plus enough milk to make one cup and leave it out for 10 minutes. That will make a fair substitute, though the real thing is always best (but who keeps buttermilk around all the time anyways??) Hope you like them!!