And They Called it Cuppie Love

On Bakerella's site yesterday, she was having a giveaway for a diaper bag that was call Red Velvet Cake. After seeing that I decided to once again try my hand at making a red velvet cake, or cupcake as the case may be. I'm not a huge fan of red velvet, but I figured if I ever do get to open a business up, I should have a good recipe all ready to go. Plus, Iron Cupcake Earth is here again, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and set about whipping up a batch of cupcakes yesterday.

As always with the IC Earth challenge, the prizes are wonderful. And just like last time, you all get to vote and maybe help me win. What are the wonderful prizes you ask, well to begin with there is The Demy by Key Ingredient (check it out here http://www.mydemy.com/). And then there are the books Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson (http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com/) and The Cake Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne (http://www.workman.com/products/9780761129615). Plus fun cupcakes accessories from Bella Cupcake Couture (http://www.bellacupcakecouture.com/), the Cupcake Stacker from Gourmac (http://www.gourmac.com/custset.html) and Beautiful Bakeing Liners by Vestli House (http://www.vestlihouse.com/index.htm). And last but certainly not least Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply (http://www.acupcakery.com/info.html). How could you not want to enter this challenge with all these goodies up for grabs.

This month the challenge was passion. So I had to make something based or inspired by love or passion. I decided that, as of late, cupcakes have been my passion, so I created the following cupcake.



My red velvet batter ready to be made into cupcakes. I didn't add a ton of red food coloring and as a result, got more of a red garnet velvet batter.

Ready for the oven.

Not as red as I had hope for. Next batch should probably have more coloring.

I filled the centers of the cupcake with cherry preserves. To cut out the centers, just use a circle cutter and then hollow out some more if you want a deeper center.

I topped the cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream, making sure to get a nice and high crown of frosting. Then I put them in the freezer.

And the reason I put the cupcakes in the freezer was so I could dip them in yummy ganache. I double dipped my cupcakes to get a nice coating, putting them back into the freezer between dippings.

Here's one cut in half so you can see the whole make-up of the cupcake.

After adding a few fondant pieces, I achieved Cuppie Love!

So if you think this looks good, please go vote for me. (please, please,please) Voting will begin no later than Sunday, February 28th 8:00pm and last until Thursday, March 4th at 12 noon CST. You can go to Nobody Puts Cupcake in a Corner at http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/ to vote for me (please,please, please). And if you would like to find out more about IronCupcake Earth, please go to http://www.ironcupcakeearth.com/.