my valentine

I wanted to do something special for Valentine's Day for my boyfriend. I had wild ambitions about the dessert I would make. After careful considoration I realized that I could make something simple, and it be just as wonderful as something complex.
I chose to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I had help. I am not a baker, for many reasons. Baking involves following the recipe completely and absolutely. I am not such a cook, and find myself always adjusting ingredients. However, in baking, cupcakes for instance, when it calls for a 1/4 teaspoon of salt, that is all the salt needed, and you don't want to forget it.
Anyway, Duncan Hines helped me. I used the red velvet cake mix and a tub of cream cheese frosting.

It is very simple to make the cake batter. Eggs, vegetable oil and water. The simplicity makes it much for enjoyable.

The color of the batter was very intense red. It is the color of a perfect valentine. I remember in elementary school the anticipation of valentine's day would set in the night before as I carefully packed my valentine's cards for my classmates. The batter reminded me of the red heart doilies valentine's, hand made, that I would receive from some classmates.

The finished cupcakes were a dulled bright red. I was a bit unhappy with the cupcake liners that I used. I bought them at target and they have a solid red bottom with black wording that said "Love" however a few of the bottoms burnt, however the cupcakes were fine. (You can see the evidence of this in the last photo of this post)

 I was very happy to learn that the oven held both trays of cupcakes so my backing time was cut in half, which meant I did not get much reading done while the cupcakes were baking.

The cupcakes were a hit, and he enjoyed them a lot. I was happy as well. It was a stress free day, which makes everything better.