Strawberry Red Velvet Cupcakes From Make It With A Cake Mix

This wasn't a fabulously new recipe, but it was yummy, and Noah especially liked it.  This starts with a cake mix, and I actually used this cupcake mix, so I didn't even make the frosting really.  This made 16 cupcakes, the boys gave them a perfect 10, and each cupcake was 277 calories.  Here's what to do:

1 box red velvet cake mix
2 T flour
3 eggs
1/2 c melted butter, cooled
1/3 c pureed strawberries
1/4 c milk
2/3 c sour cream
1 t vanilla

1/2 c butter, softened
frosting packet or
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 t vanilla
3-4 c powdered sugar
1/3 c pureed strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line your muffin tins.
Combine the eggs, butter, strawberries, milk, sour cream and vanilla, and beat.  Sift in the flour and cake mix.  Beat together, then fill the muffin cups and bake for around 17 minutes.  Let cool, then make the frosting by beating everything together and frosting the cupcakes.  Serve.

Pioneer Woman's Red (or not :)) Velvet Pancakes

Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow!  Red Velvet Pancakes from The Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook are yummy and perfect for your Valentine :).  This recipe was a hit with my boys, not so much with my true Valentine Aaron, but regardless these are good and easy.  I felt like there was too much baking powder, they had that bitter taste that comes from too much baking powder, and I added more cocoa powder, but mostly followed the directions.  Also, I didn't use maple syrup, I used vanilla and almond extracts. Each pancake with syrup was 184 calories, and the recipe made 22 pancakes or us.  Aaron gave them a 6, I gave them an 8, ad Owen and Noah gave them a perfect 10.  Here's the easy peasy recipe.  Make them red if you desire, I just really don't like using food coloring very much :).

3 c flour
3 T baking powder
2 T sugar
1 t salt
2 T cocoa powder
1 1/2 c almond milk
1 c buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 T vanilla
2 t white vinegar
4 T butter, melted

Syrup:
2 1/2 c powdered sugar
dash of salt
4 T butter, melted
1/4 c buttermilk
1/4 c almond milk
1 1/2 T corn syrup
1/2 T vanilla and almond extracts, mixed, mostly vanilla

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.  Set aside.  Mix together almond milk, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and vinegar.  Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined, then add in the butter and cook on a heated griddle.
Whisk together the icing/syrup ingredients, then pour over your pancakes and enjoy!

Velvet Brownie Swirl Cake

We had a Velvet Brownie Swirl Cake, and it was really good.  This was not very difficult to make, and it turns out so pretty when it's done.  It's moist and has lots of flavor.  It's called velvet because it's essentially a red velvet cake without the red food coloring.  This had 368 calories for 1/24 of the cake, and we gave it an 8, and Aaron even enjoyed it.  Like I said, this wasn't difficult, and it definitely tasted great.

Tomorrow we're having pasta with broccoli, sausage and peppers.

Red Velvet Coconut Doughnuts

We had some delicious donuts/muffins today.  They are Red Velvet Coconut Doughnuts and they are too good.  Owen, Noah and I gave them a perfect 10, Aaron gave them a 6, since he doesn't like cake.  He ate more than one of the mini muffins, so he must have liked them okay :).  This was an easy recipe, and the frosting is delicious, although it made way more than we needed for the recipe.  I made a couple of changes to the recipe, I put in one less tablespoon flour, and added an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder, I changed the amount of oil to 1/4 c and added in 1/2 c sour cream, and I added in a lot of food coloring, because I like the deep red color.  I also didn't garnish with coconut, because I didn't think they needed it.  I love how these are traditional red velvet, but still with the coconut extract have something extra.  It really adds to the doughnuts.  Since I don't have two donut pans, I made 6 donuts, 12 mini muffins, and 3 regular sized muffins.  I had a hard time figuring out calories for these, because of the multiple sizes of the food and because we only used 2/3 of the frosting, approximately.  Anyway, if you follow the recipe with my changes and have only 12 donuts, and use all the frosting, the calories are 458/donut.  If not, the calories for the big muffins and the donuts with all the frosting are 367/donut and 229/mini muffin.  Who knows what the calories are with the smaller amount of frosting we used, but it's definitely less than what I put here since the frosting is where all the calories come from.  These are so moist and tender, and worth every calorie.  Yum! 
Tomorrow we're having some healthier muffins and some breakfast food.