Red Velvet Cupcakes

I have made these once before but I think the recipe I used was a Paula Deen recipe. This time I used the one off the McCormick website. They make great extracts! They turned out great and made plenty. I was able to send everyone home from a party with some.

Red Velvet Cupcakes from: McCormick Website
Cupcakes:
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of butter, softened (I used unsalted)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 bottle of red food coloring (I just used a big dollop of gel coloring)
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Frosting:
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons of sour cream
2 teaspoons of vanilla
16 ounces of powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour through the salt together. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add sour cream, milk, food coloring and vanilla. Slowly add in dry ingredients just until blended. I used my 1/4 cup ice cream scoop to fill 30 lined muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean). Cool in pan for a few minutes, then remove and cool completely.
Make the frosting by mixing the cream cheese and butter until blended, then add the sour cream and vanilla. (the website says to mix the 1st 4 ingredients together, but this didn't work as well for me and I was mixing like crazy to get a few lumps out) Add the powdered sugar slowly. Frost your cupcakes. I used a Wilton's 1M frosting tip in a ziplock to get the swirls. I love the swirls! I was a little leery of the sour cream in the frosting. I have never heard of adding this, but the frosting was really good. I kind of wonder if it cuts the sweetness down a bit. Refrigerate the leftovers. I thought refrigerating these made them more dense and I liked that.

Halloween pillow and popcorn

I wish I would have gotten more into Halloween this year. It's just been so cold and dreary! I did make this  pillow though.

Sad that this was the only decoration I actually had out. I didn't even ask anyone to help me get the decorations from the attic.

I started with this shirt my husband decided he couldn't stand to wear anymore. When I first thought about making a pillow out this shirt, I was thinking of sewing a pumpkin on. A black cat would be cute also.

I got this template off the Country Living website. I think I enlarged their template 144% to get the size I wanted. I pinned it like crazy and sewed it with my sewing machine. Hand sewing would also work. The back of the pillow has the button front of the shirt so it is easy to cover a pillow I already have.

I also made this popcorn and forgot to take it to the adult dress up party we went to. I was too busy worrying about our costumes.

It is a cross of 2 recipes I saw on a couple of blogs. One for Candy "corn" popcorn at I Heart Nap Time and another for Payday caramel corn at Shugary Sweets. Both of these sites always have great ideas and I visit them often.

Tonight we have trick or treating in our town. Halloween was delayed because of Sandy. Luckily our area did not see much more then some rain and wind. My son did get a day off of school for it. I went to Kmart last night and bought all of my candy. I ended up not paying anything for the almost $22 bill. I was able to use my points and I still have a few dollars left over. Love that!