Happy Valentine's Day

We've all been sick here in LaTina Land, so the red velvet cupcakes I wanted to make for Valentine's day had to wait. Everyone is feeling better now, so I made them today instead.

I used Paula Deen's recipe, with some modifications. I halved the cupcake recipe (because the three of us don't need to eat 24 cupcakes - 12 is plenty) and added slightly less red food coloring than the recipe called for (I used about 3/4 tbsp. in a half batch - as you can see, my cupcakes were still nice and red). I also doubled the cocoa powder (1 heaping tsp. in a half batch), since I've seen a lot of red velvet cupcake recipes that call for 1 tbsp. of cocoa powder instead of the 1 tsp. in Paula Deen's version.

The cream cheese frosting in this recipe is delicious, but as written, it is enough to frost an entire two-layer cake. I made slightly less than 1/4 of the frosting recipe:

• 3 oz. softened cream cheese
• 3 tbsp. softened salted butter
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla
• 1 scant cup sifted confectioners' sugar
• a few drops red food coloring

Max wanted pink cupcakes, so I added a little food coloring to the frosting. This recipe made plenty of frosting for 12 cupcakes.