Hurricane (Cupcake) Baking

Well, Hurricane Irene turned out to be more of a 'prolonged rain shower,' at least round these parts, but it didn't stop me from having a party last night! Now, normally I make cupcakes with my special Jell-O pudding frosting (just take any package of instant pudding and whip it with cream. My personal favorite is pistachio flavor) but I was itching to try a frosting recipe I saw on the Pioneer Woman titled 'Best Frosting Ever' or something to that effect.

Most frosting recipes tend to be too sweet for my taste, that's why I like the Jell-O pudding frosting because it's the perfect combo of creamy and tasty but not too sweet. But this one sounded like a good alternative. It has flour in it! You basically make a roux with the flour and milk then add butter, sugar, and vanilla. You can check out the whole recipe here. The directions tell you to really whip the ingredients together and I can't emphasize that enough. Even if you think you're done, mix it for a few more seconds. The frosting should be kind of stiff, like this:

I would also recommend using the best quality butter you can. There aren't too many ingredients in this recipe, so the better the quality of everything, the better the frosting. I used some sticks that had been frozen and while the frosting was still good, I could definitely tell.


Now for the cupcakes...

I read somewhere that this was the frosting originally used with Red Velvet cake before cream cheese frosting became the go-to. I loooove me some cream cheese frosting, but it can definitely be on the rich side. This is a nice alternative. I used Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix because they tend to make the best boxed cakes. Quite frankly, Red Velvet is kind of a pain to make from scratch because of the mass quantities of red food coloring involved and the taste difference between homemade and boxed is negligible (at least in my opinion.)

Then, frost and enjoy! I recommend displaying them on the counter for easy access: