Red Velvet with Cocoa Raspberry Sauce

At work, as you may have read, I was very much inspired to try and make Red Velvet cupcakes. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching a recipe and how to decorate said cupcakes. I'm dedicated, what can I say? Any who the chef in me was determined to really rock these cupcakes with some sort of sauce. Raspberry seemed to make the most sense but I was still hesitant.
After work I came home for the weekend and Saturday morning I got started on the cupcakes. While they were baking I got to the sauce. Even as I was making it I wasn't too excited about it so on a whim I added some cocoa powder. I let it chill and put it in one of those old school diner ketchup bottles, the kind that's all red with an easy squirt nozzle. The thought being I could drizzle this sauce over my cupcakes in a fancy-shmancy way.
I was suposed to go to a friend's party but unfortunately had to cancel to instead have dinner with some friends who were in town. Excited to have an audience, I happily prepared my cupcakes with the drizzled Raspberry sauce which I had heated just before serving. Omg these were so good. As I mentioned in my last post, I don't know much about Red Velvet cupcakes but I have to say these were phenomenal. Also I never did go to Crumbs to get a cupcake, whoops. And I know I say that about all of my cupcakes but these were so good, and the sauce is what made it. I think it would have made anything taste good. One complaint, I think I over baked the cupcakes by a few minutes. But other than that, heaven. I literally just finished another cupcake, I may try to take some back to school with me tomorrow.

PS I stole this beautiful plate from Little Italy when we were in NY a few weeks ago :] 

Prelude to a Cupcake

A prelude, my mom does this on her blog, and I think it's the cutest thing. Upon conversation with my coworkers (they deserve some cupcakes soon, they really inspire me) I've decided to tackle Red Velvet cupcakes. To me this is huge, people are all about their RV. I feel like when someone talks about a cupcake place the first thing you hear, praise or criticism, is how they did on their Red Velvet. When I have about $50 to spend, because these places are so damn expensive, one day I'm going to go around to all the local cupcake places and buy a cupcake from each so I can scope out the competition.

To be honest I don't think I've ever had  Red Velevet before. It doesn't look that great and to be honest I don't really get it. It's like vanilla? But not? With some cocoa in it? But it's not chocolate? Like, make up your mind cupcake. So in order to determine how RV should taste I'm going to head over to Crumbs and get one. Cupcakes there are huge and a whopping $4-something but word on the street is they offer one of the best RV cupcakes around. Until I conquer this mountain of a cupcake enjoy your Friday and keep an eye out for my post about Kristie's Red Velvet!