I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

 Red Velvet Cupcakes w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

Because I love how my nails match the 100's and 1000's, a little.

Chinese New Year is only a week away sweetums! Although my second semester commences next Monday. *wail*

As promised, cupcakes made using flavouring and colouring. I was thinking of saving up on other ingredients because cream cheese has never ceased intimidating me with its price.

So instead of using the frosting recipe to save on the cream acquired at Joy of Baking, I turned to another recipe at allrecipes.com that goes with butter. And because unsalted butter could not be found and salted butter's price is another jaw-dropping factor, I substituted it with fat spread.

Talk about bad choices!

Cream would make a good frosting along with the cheese and sugar, over butter, and obviously fat spread too. By the way, since I don't fancy overly sweet stuff, I would recommend to cut the sugar amount of both cake and frosting recipes by half, although I've actually reduced both of their original sugar content! Otherwise, chucking this baby down your throat will be a guilty and torturing experience.

Cream cream frosting:

250g cream cheese

57g (4 ounces) butter (which I used fat spread)

125g sugar (reduced 70g from the original 195g)

Cream the cheese until smooth, add butter and cream until even. Add sugar, mix until fluffy.

When making this frosting, I wasn't a happy kid. :(

Red velvet cupcakes:

125g flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cocoa powder

57g (4 ounces) butter (which I used fat spread)

120g sugar (I used 80g confectionery and 40g brown)

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

120ml milk (mixed with 1 tbsp lemon juice as a substitute to buttermilk, refer to Joy of Baking)

1/2 tbsp red food colouring

1/2 tsp white distilled vinegar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 175°C.

1. Mix flour, baking powder and cocoa thoroughly.

2. Cream butter until smooth, add sugar and cream until fluffy. Whip in egg.

3. Add vanilla essence into the butter mixture.

4. Pour red food colouring into the milk, mix evenly.

5. In batches, add flour mixture and milk into the butter mixture alternately, beginning and ending with flour.

6. Pour baking soda over vinegar, allow to fizz, then mix into batter.

7. Acting quickly, pour batter into containers. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted.

I was expecting them to rise, not crack. Gah.

I managed to bake 9 of these babies, thanks to the larger muffin container. Ugh. :( So I had to pile up the frosting merrily.

To assemble:
1. Pipe or spoon the frosting over cupcakes when cool.
2. Allow to set in the fridge for a few hours.

Oh-so-firm. *wail again*