Sprinkles Knock-Off Red Velvet Cupcakes

Sprinkles makes the best Red Velvet Cupcakes, hands down. If you've never heard of Sprinkles, just watch Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. I was thrilled when Sprinkles opened a bakery here in San Diego but with the price of each cupcake running in the $3.75 range, it's not something I can indulge in very often. So I searched for the internet and lo and behold I found a recipe. I doubled mine because if I'm going to all this trouble I better have more than 12 cupcakes to show for my efforts. Seriously, who eats just one cupcake??? Not I!!

Yields 24 delicious cupcakes


Ingredients:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
6 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 sticks salted butter, firm but not cold
2 cup + 4 Tbsp granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 Tbsp red food coloring
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp distilled white vinegar
Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda, set aside. In a separate large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, whip together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 4 -5 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time stirring after each addition. (Now stand back and change out of any nice shirt you have on and) Add red food coloring and vanilla extract and mix until combine. In a small mixing bowl (or in the measuring cup you used to measure milk), combine milk and 1 tsp vinegar. Add milk mixture and flour mixture to cupcake mixture, alternating in two separate batches, mixing until combine after each addition. Divide batter evenly among 24 paper lined muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven 20-23 minutes until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool about 2 minutes in muffin tin, then transfer to wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to an airtight container to cool completely (this just helps them retain more moisture). Once cooled completely, spread generously with Cream Cheese Frosting


Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 8 oz bricks of cream cheese, cold
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar



Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, whip together the powdered sugar and cream cheese until pale and fluffy (about 1 minute on high speed, then 3-4 minutes on medium high speed). Mix in vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until fluffy. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture . Place the frosting in a large zip lock bag. Seal and snip off one of the corners. Frost the cupcakes by squeezing the frosting through the open end of the bag.
Note- If I don't need all the cupcakes immediately, I only frost those I need as they need to be placed in the frig. I place the zip lock bag of frosting in the frig and store the unfrosted cupcakes in an air-tight container or in the freezer until I need more.