Cracking the cupcake problem.
You know what’s the problem with cupcakes? It’s the frosting. You have these little round cakes with frosting just on the top, and there’s no good way to eat them so that you get both cake and frosting in every mouthful.
If you eat from the top down, you get all the frosting right at the beginning, and then you’re left with just plain cake at the end. And if you try to eat them from side to side, you still can’t fit the whole cake into your mouth at once, so you have to go back and forth between a bite with icing and a bite without.
Well, I’ve cracked this problem. The trick is to cut your cupcakes into layers, and then pipe the frosting in between…so no matter how you eat them, you get a balance of cake and frosting in every bite.
To wrap up my series of special desserts for Valentine’s Day, I’ve used this technique with red velvet cupcakes and cream cheese frosting. The red and white layers have the perfect color scheme for the holiday. And like all my other Valentine treats, these layered delights are actually a lot easier than they look, because you can make them from a boxed red velvet cake mix…so no messing around with food coloring or anything complicated.
Easy Mini Red Velvet Cakes…a Valentine you can eat.
Easy Mini Red Velvet Cakes
INGREDIENTS:
For the Cake:
1 box red velvet cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 eggs
For the Frosting:
16 oz cream cheese, softened
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened and cut into 1/2″ cubes
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
DIRECTIONS:
1. Bake cupcakes according to box directions. Mine called for the water butter and eggs listed in the ingredients. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted into a center cupcake comes out clean.
2. Immediately turn cupcakes onto a clean surface and allow to cool completely before assembling.
While cupcakes are cooling beat cream cheese in a stand mixer until creamy. Slowly add butter cubes, beating until well combined. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well. Stir in vanilla and scoop into a pastry or gallon zip bag fitted with a Wilton 1M piping tip (if you don’t have this tip you can also just cut a small corner off the end of your zip bag instead).
3. Remove the wrappers from the cupcakes and cut the top off the cupcakes using a serrated knife (save this for cake pops or snacking!) then cut each cupcake in half. Add frosting, a 2nd layer of cake, and repeat until the mini cake has 3 tiers and frosting on top.
4. Garnish with cake crumbs or red sprinkles.
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Easy Mini Red Velvet Cakes
Ingredients
- For the Cake:
- 1 box red velvet cake mix
- 1 1/4 cups water
- 1/3 cup butter melted
- 3 eggs
- For the Frosting:
- 16 oz cream cheese softened
- 2 sticks unsalted butter softened and cut into 1/2" cubes
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Bake cupcakes according to box directions. Mine called for the water butter and eggs listed in the ingredients. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted into a center cupcake comes out clean.
- Immediately turn cupcakes onto a clean surface and allow to cool completely before assembling.
- While cupcakes are cooling beat cream cheese in a stand mixer until creamy. Slowly add butter cubes, beating until well combined. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well. Stir in vanilla and scoop into a pastry or gallon zip bag fitted with a Wilton 1M piping tip (if you don't have this tip you can also just cut a small corner off the end of your zip bag instead).
- Remove the wrappers from the cupcakes and cut the top off the cupcakes using a serrated knife (save this for cake pops or snacking!) then cut each cupcake in half. Add frosting, a 2nd layer of cake, and repeat until the mini cake has 3 tiers and frosting on top.
- Garnish with cake crumbs or red sprinkles.
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Nutrition Disclaimer
Family Fresh Meals is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is only an estimate. We recommend running the ingredients through an online nutritional calculator if you need to verify any information.
Mary says
What an ingenious idea! Frosting with every bite…yummy! Cakes look so moist and delicious. Pinned. Thanks for sharing.