Giant Red Velvet Cupcakes

There have been a couple of celebrations this past week and I made my go-to cake: Red Velvet.

I've made it so much at this point I can make it with my eyes closed. Well.. not really but you get what I mean.

This cake is SUPER moist. So moist that whenever I make cupcakes it tends to peel away from the cupcake wrapper if left out at room temp for a day. I haven't figured out a solution to this so I decided to make the cakes in an 8oz ramekin. Two reasons: 1) I didn't have giant cupcake pans and 2) The bigger the cake the less you have to make. I'm always up for less time consuming when applicable. And.. a giant cupcake would be cute.

I sprayed the inside of it with a pan spray that had flour in it. It's AMAZING! It just slips right out.

Then I cut holes in the center almost all the way down so I could fill the inside with cream cheese icing.

I don't really use a recipe anymore for cream cheese icing but here's a generally the ratio I use:

Cream Cheese Icing

1 Pound Cream Cheese
4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter (room temp)
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Cream the cream cheese in a standing mixer with a paddle attachment until smooth.
Add the butter and mix well.
Add the powdered sugar in 2 batches scraping down the sides of the bowl often.
Add the vanilla in last.

Here's my secret.. I let it beat on medium to medium-high speed for a full minute or two. This will make the cream cheese light and airy. The longer you let it beat the lighter it gets.

Fill the holes with the cream cheese icing.

Then cut some of the cake that was pulled out so that you get just a top to cover the hole.

At this point I made the wrapper before I finished icing the tops so that it would be easier to handle.

Since I didn't have large cupcake wrappers I just used parchment paper. I used a 6" cake circle as a stencil and cut out circles from the parchment paper.

Then I used the ramekin that the cake was baked in as a guide to create the wrapper.

Then I took the cupcake wrapped it with the parchment paper and to make it stay, I put a rubber band around it.

Then I iced the tops of the cupcakes.

Last touch was a pretty ribbon.

You can't tell it's red velvet! Haha rushed photo taking.