Red Velvet Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I love red velvet cake, cupcakes and especially The Cheesecake Factory's Red Velvet Cheesecake! Yumm!! What I don't love, is what a pain red velvet cupcakes can be to make! Well, thats what I use to think until I found Lorann Professional Kitchen Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion! I love the color it gives the cake and the flavor is pretty good also, as long as you add some cocoa.

In order to make this process as easy as possible I like to start with a vanilla cake mix as my base. I add heavy cream, milk, and melted butter which gives the cake a super moist creamy red velvet flavor! I only add a couple tablespoons of cocoa because I don't like a real chocolately flavor and I add a little extra sugar to make sure the cocoa doesn't make the cake too bitter. 

Typically with a box mix you just throw it all in and mix it up but in this case I like to start with the dry ingredients and make sure the sugar and cocoa is well incorporated into the mix before I start adding the wet ingredients. Once everything is all mixed up I can already tell it's going to be great based on the batter color! Isn't it pretty?!?!

Like most cake mixes the cupcakes don't rise all that much so I tend to fill my cups pretty full, I find it easier to decorate cupcakes that are at the top or just below it when they're done. I have a great cookie scoop that I bought from Target that helps me to get almost even cupcakes, although no matter what, they are never even! 

There is nothing better on red velvet cupcakes then creamy cream cheese icing! I like my cream cheese icing to have a strong cream cheese flavor and therefore use a lot of cream cheese in it! This icing is definitely less sweet then buttercream because I tend to use a lot less powdered sugar. 

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Red Velvet Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Yield: a little more than2 dozen

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

1 box of vanilla cake mix

2 tbsp. Hershey’s Cocoa Powder

1 tbsp. sugar

½ cup melted butter, cooled

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

2 tbsp.  Lorann Professional Kitchen Red Velvet Emulsion

Frosting:

½ cup butter-softened

16 oz. cream cheese

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1½ cups of powder sugar

Directions

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. 
2. Add cake mix, cocoa, and sugar to bowl of your stand mixer, mix on low until well mixed. 
3. Add heavy cream, milk, butter, and vanilla. Mix on medium. 
4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. 
5. Add emulsion and mix well. 
6. Divide batter evenly between paper lined cups. Place pans in the oven, immediately turn oven down to 325º. Bake 15-20 minutes, turning half way through if your oven doesn’t cook evenly.

Frosting:

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer combine butter and cream cheese; beat on medium-high until smooth, scraping sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed. 
2. Beat in the vanilla extract. Turn mixer down to low and begin adding sifted powdered sugar until desired consistency. 
3.  Frost cupcakes once cool.

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