Food coloring is no laughing matter

Before I get to the cupcakes, I would like to explain why I have clearly changed the name of my blog. I am a self-proclaimed "frosting snob." I do not use canned frosting since the last time I bought a can of cream cheese frosting and it basically just tasted like sugar... blah. I make all my own frostings from scratch and they are exponentially better. I take pride in the quality of my cupcakes... too much pride to let them be sullied with crap in a can! *end rant* LOL...

My cupcake adventure today was Blue Velvet Cupcakes for my in-laws' Hanukkah Party. I am not Jewish, but my husband is (or at least, he is on the holidays ;)), so I get the perks of all the yummy food like latkes, and even presents! Sounds like as good a reason as any other to make cupcakes! This was a new recipe I tried, and as always, new recipes can be hit or miss. This one was an inbetween, which I'll get into later. (The recipe is courtesy of Sprinkle Bakes)

Here's a picture of the pretty blue batter (and my "magic" pink mixer).:



This recipe, just like the red version, calls for lots of food coloring to get such a vibrant color. I used gel food coloring instead of my usual liquid food coloring since it's better quality and more potent. However, instead of coming in a handy dandy dropper bottle, it comes in a jar, and since the jar has the opening the size of a quarter, and I needed a tablespoon of it, I had to get down and dirty with the food coloring. Looks kind of like I slammed my fingers in a door!



Thank goodness it has since washed off, but only after much scrubbing!

This is just a picture of what happens when you add vingear to baking soda... it fizzles :) I'm not really sure what that does for the cake (I was never good at chemistry) but its fun to watch... then again I'm easily amused :)



This is where the recipe starts to go south. I baked the cupcakes for 5 minutes less time than the recipe called for, just to make sure they didn't burn. I did the "toothpick test", and they were definately done, but for some reason they came out smaller than I expected and very dense. Also, the cupcake paper was pulling away from the cupcake. This is the first time I have ever seen this happen, and I'm still not sure what went wrong. A few other people online have used this recipe successfully, so I am sure it was some kind of "user error" :)



For frosting purposes I just took the wrappers off and frosted them "naked". They taste just fine; they're a little dense, but definately edible. I was disappointed they didn't come out bigger and fluffier like my usual cupcakes. Next time I make them, I'm going to try just using my regular red velvet recipe and swapping out the food colors only. Oh yeah, and maybe I'll use some of those plastic gloves you see the cafeteria folks wear ;)



Peace, Love and Cupcakes,
Amanda