- 1 c. all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 5 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. cocoa powder
- 1 lg. egg1/2 tsp. almond extract
- 1/2 c. milk
- 1/2 tbsp. red food coloring
- 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/4 c. butter, softened
- 1/4 c. light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tsp. almond extract
- 1 pinch salt
- 4 c. powdered sugar
- 1-2 tbsp. milk
For the cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt into a bowl. Set aside. Beat together butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl with an electric mixer on low until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat until well incorporated, about a minute. Beat in almond extract. Add half of flour mixture and beat slowly as not to send it all flying. Nobody really wants to have to deflour themselves... Pahahahaha, I get me everytime. Ahem.. anyway.. then beat in the milk, and then the dye, and then slowly add the rest of the flour, being super careful once again.
Bake in your preheated oven in either a muffin pan lined with sprayed muffin liners, or just grease and flour the pan itself. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let cool partially, about 10 minutes, and then remove them to finish cooling on a cooling rack.
For the Frosting:
Beat JUST the cream cheese in a lg. mixing bowl until smooth, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add in the butter. I mixed it a bit with the scraping spoon just to help them get to know eachother a bit before beating them together slowly, until well incorporated. You want the color to be consistent, and no lumps. Add brown sugar, salt, and almond extract. Beat until smooth, stop, and add in 2 cups of the powdered sugar. Once again, beat SLOWLY as to not send it flying. Powdered sugar isn't nearly as fun as flour, because it gets sticky.... Yuck. Anyway, alternate SLOWLY adding the milk and the powdered sugar until until it comes together your desired consistency.
Mine came out sort of runny, so I put it in the fridge hoping to thicken it up a little. I did to a taste test on a cooled cupcake though, and it was delicious. I pulled it out of the fridge, and the consistency was still a little too... pudding-y... so I guess I'm just gonna have to play with the recipe to get it just right. Also, it seemed that no matter how much red food coloring I added, it was still just.. pink. It didn't quite capture the red velvet flavor I was looking for either, I guess I should have added more cocoa, but this is my very first OWN recipe so I'll have to revisit it a lot to perfect it and get it just right. Anyway, thanks for reading!!
Note: I don't know why the website randomly chooses which order and where to put the pictures in the post, so I apologize for it not making much sense.....
