11:30 PM, School Night. How bout some cupcakes?

The other night Steph, Manda and I went to Toast Eatery in Noe Valley. We had decent diner eats, but on a lark I got one of their cupcakes and they were real tasty. I didn't think they'd be good, but I was totally surprised. So I wanted to make some of my own. That and I wanted to pop the cherry on my new bad ass Kitchen Aid stand Mixer. Ok, Steph used it but I hadn't had the chance yet. So technically it wasn't a virgin stand mixer but I digress because I'm not going to debate the issue of, stand mixers and how much they lie. At least not in this post. Anyway, I wanted to make some of my fav cupcakes, the Red Velvet cupcake. Not familiar? Hmm, think mild cocoa taste stained red with the blood of virgins. Oh shit! That's not red velvet, that's a completely different recipe so make that red food coloring. Next you'll find butter cream slathered on top. Nice, simple, yum.

Recipe. I found a seemingly common recipe in Stephs copy of "Hey There Cupcake." and I followed it closely, until the issue of my lack of the proper amount of food coloring surfaced. I added a tiny bit of water to offset the lack of liquid.

Baking. I baked them and they came fine I suppose except the texture, although moist was not quite as caky as I'd like. I think the fact that I didn't bother to remove the pizza stone from the oven must have fucked with the way they baked. It's not that I forgot to take it out. It was that by the time I remembered to take it out the oven was already hot and I didn't want to deal with it by that point. Note to self for next time. Take that shit out!

Color. The color isn't as deeply red as I'd like. They're a lighter red. I think this could be because the recipe didn't use enough cocoa. I'm going to look into this.

Frosting. I also used a recipe for Butter Cream from the book. I feel like it sucks. Too much sugar and not enough butter. Stupid book you're fucking up my cupcakes! Wow that was an easy way of sloughing the blame off like some many dead skin cells when I wash my face. It's just that easy to not accept blame. Ok, Ok, I made sub par cupcakes. No big deal. I just have to tweak a thing or two.

Best Red Velvet: The best I've had was at Chicago Cupcakes in, Chicago. That shit was good yo!