Someone from work was lamenting that one of our local cupcake shops (Kara’s) doesn’t carry red velvet cupcakes. I’ve eaten plenty of red velvet, and it’s good but not my flavor of choice (at Kara’s, it’s always fleur de sel for me). I figured I’d try making them, but broke one of my rules of cooking right away. I found a recipe and didn’t really follow it. Well, I did, but I wasn’t about to dump three bottles of red food coloring into the batter, so the cupcakes are brown. And I ignored the frosting from the recipe and used the vanilla cream cheese frosting from Fine Cooking instead (a half batch was perfect). Also note that I can’t decorate cakes worth a damn.

• Red Velvet Cupcakes (More From Magnolia: Recipes From The World-Famous Bakery and Magnolia’s Home Kitchen)
• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting (Fine Cooking #97, February 2009, p. 72)