Made it Monday - Red Velvet Cupcakes

As seen on yesterday's Celebration Sunday post, I used this recipe.
Now there were a few things that are not in my favour -

1. I have never had a red velvet cake before so I have no idea what they are supposed to taste like
2. I only have a 6 hole muffin tin
3. This recipe makes 30 cupcakes

If you decide to make these cupcakes then I warn you, the ingredients will look shocking, a cup and a half of vegetable oil and 3 cups of sugar look like diabetes and CHD all rolled into one! Be sure to use a large bowl, the bowl I am using in the picture below holds 4.5 litres, it is pretty full!
When all the ingredients are combined the mixture is fairly runny, I used a ladle to fill the cases with.
The red food colouring (a whole bottle!!) hasn't stained my earthenware bowl but do be careful with plastic ones as they might go red! It is much more vibrant in err.... "person" so I wasn't expecting the results.

Oven shot - rising well and looking pretty red, nice example of how much mess I make when baking!

And the end result! The cakes were more brown velvet to be honest which was disappointing, I might experiment with powder food colouring instead or try to find a food colouring which is artificial, the silly natural ones do seem to lack the oomph of old school e-number versions.
Most important though is the taste...as I have no comparison I have no idea if they taste normal or not. I was worried they would taste vinegary but there is no hint of it! The cake itself is very light albeit with a crisp top, perhaps over baking on my part or something but it is not burnt in any way. I'm not sure what it tastes of, kind of neutral tasting really! I mean it does have a flavour but nothing distinct!
The frosting was made a bit runnier than it should have been because I couldn't be arsed to weight out the cream cheese when it was only a little bit over what it should have been anyway. The frosting should have a health warning of its own! Serious unhealthy goodness! A definite don't ask and I won't tell situation.
It is so good I honestly felt compelled to stick my face in the bowl (I restrained myself).

There are far too many to fit on my cake stand!

If anyone else has made red velvet cakes and can let me in on the colour secret I would love to know!

If you are from the UK and don't have US measuring cups then this website will allow you to convert the measurements, you need to be converting volume rather than weight.

Happy baking!

Made it Monday (Just!!) - Shoe refurbishment....

The first "Made it Monday"! Not the most exciting post ever, I need to take an evening photographing a load of stuff I have made but I need to learn how to use a camera properly ha ha ha! So the camera phone images will hopefully come to an end soon - yay!
Anyway I must get to the point.... I have a few pairs of plain black heels that don't get worn very often so I decided to give a pair a makeover. I dithered over possible designs but was limited by the number of hot fix crystals in my stash so decided to go for a more contained design as opposed to a full on bling fest (which was what I really wanted to do, I have more heels in need of a makeover so there is still hope!).
The crystals are applied using a Kandy Kane thingy which is like a soldering iron in size and appearance. I highly recommend getting one if you are a lover of shiny and sparkly things, the crystals can be applied to almost anything.... which is a bit dangerous.... you might just go into a crystal frenzy and emerge out the other side with NO SURFACE UNTOUCHED!!!

They are probably not to every ones tastes but will add a little je ne sais quois to a LBD or dress up some jeans. So next time you're at home and after a quick little project to fill an hour give this a go - if you are using shoes that don't get worn or ones that were dirt cheap, what do you have to lose?!