RED VELVET CUPCAKES WITH RASPEBERRY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

It's very awkward for me to say "strongly dislike" about anything with sugar in it. It goes against my nature or some kind of major fuck up in my verbal skills, but it's also very true. And the reason is because every time I've ever had red velvet, all I can taste is the food coloring. There was always some strange artificial flavor that left a thin waxy film in my mouth. So naturally, I avoid red velvet.

That is, a co-worker of Ryan's requested red velvets. And since I'm not one to never say never, especially to a friend (who asks politely), red velvets were the goal of this week.

I found a recipe on MarthaStewart.com that I was going to try because you really can't go wrong with Martha Stewart, but I was thumbing through a magazine the day before baking and decided to switch at the last minute. What could have me stray from Stewart?.. liqueur. The recipe I found in the magazine had raspberry liqueur in the cake and frosting with raspberries for garnish. I just naturally gravitated toward the raspberries (even though I garnished with a SnoCap).

The frosting recipe called for eight flippin' cups of confectioner's sugar. EIGHT! I thought that was a bit ridiculous and intimidating so I actually halved the confectioner's sugar. The frosting came out quite soft, but still pipe-able. It looked like soft-serve ice cream, really. I wanted to avoid the sugar shock of the frosting and even with just four cups of sugar, the frosting was still a bit on the super sweet side. I'm slowly coming to the realization that even though I have the worst sweet tooth among everyone I know, too much really can be too much.

All in all, Ryan's place of employment enjoyed the cupcakes. And I'll even admit that I enjoyed them as well and this is coming from someone who "strongly dislikes" red velvet. The cake was super moist, the raspberry liqueur added a new flavor to the cake and I couldn't taste a single drop of food coloring.

HAZELNUT CAPPUCCINO CUPCAKES WITH CAPPUCCINO SMBC

I decided to make these for a particular coffee addict I know. I imagine she has a kitchen cabinet dedicated to all the coffee mugs her friends & family give her as gifts. It seems like every time I see her, there's a different mug in her hand.

I love me some coffee as well. An older brother got me started on it when I was real young. I remember him having probably about 10 different flavors and roasts that he'd rotate and let me drink a few sips to try. Me, being 6 years old, couldn't really tell the difference but I had an idea of what he was talking about. Now that I drink about one cup every weekday, I can only tell what fresh coffee tastes like. Flavors and roasts still don't make much of a difference to me, but I so do enjoy my cup in the wee hours of the morn.

This cupcake asked for ground hazelnuts and finding hazelnuts in April wasn't the easiest thing in world to do. I wandered around the coffee and nut aisles of the grocery stores, thinking they would be cracked, bagged and ready to go. When there was no such thing, I wandered around the produce aisle to find a bin of assorted shelled nuts. The next step was to figure out what the hell shelled hazelnuts look like. So, after googling hazelnuts, I had to sift through the bin and pick em out, one by one. Then, grind them in a food processor.

So anyway, the extra love that went into these cupcakes by handpicking, roasting and grinding the hazelnuts were well received. Extra love makes everything extra tasty. And the frosting is a swiss meringue buttercream, which also require extra care than your standard American buttercreams. But all the work and attention for a swiss meringue buttercream is soooo worth it. SMBCs are now, my most absolutely favorite type of frosting. They're so light & fluffy and perfectly sweet enough.

So, from a mathematical stand point, these cupcakes should be AH-MAY-ZING. And in my coffee-fiend buddy's opinion, they were, but to me, I'm as indifferent to them as I was since I was a kid with coffee flavors. Don't get me wrong! They were delicious, but coffee fanatics will probably appreciate them more than those who can't tell the difference from cappuccino from a foamy Dunkin Donuts coffee.