Make It Work Sam: Green Velvet Cupcakes

I have always loved red velvet cupcakes, but never thought to make them in other colors! I got the recipe to make these festive shamrock green velvet cupcakes from none other than Martha Stewart. Here is the recipe for the cream cheese frosting also.

Serves: 24
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

Cake mix ingredients:
-2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
-2 tablespoons cocoa powder
-1 tsp salt
-1 1/2 cups sugar
-1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
-2 large eggs
-green food coloring
-1 tsp pure vanilla extract
-1 cup buttermilk
-1 1/2 tsp baking soda
-2 tsp distilled white vinegar

Cream cheese frosting ingredients:
-12 oz cream cheese, room temperature
-2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
-1 lb confectioner's sugar
-3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

3. Mix together flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, mix oil and sugar together. Add in eggs, vanilla, and food coloring. I used about 4 drops of green.

The color came out great!

5. Mix the sugar mixture into the flour mixture. Now, when I did this, this is what color the batter turned.

Damn you, cocoa powder! In an effort to save the color, I added in like 12 drops of food coloring.

Bleh! It was an ugly army green color! But, at least it was green. I didn't know how to rescue the color at this point, so I left it. I guess I need more practice with mixing colors!

6. In a small bowl, mix the baking soda and vinegar together. They will foam, so don't freak out. Then, add this mixture into the cake batter and mix thoroughly. I actually forgot this step and my first batch of cupcakes didn't rise beyond the liner. Whoops!

7. Spoon the cake batter into the cupcake liners so that it fills about 3/4 of the liner.

8. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

10. To make the frosting, mix well all frosting ingredients together: cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla. I didn't use a mixer, but you probably should to get the lumps out. Add in 3-4 drops of food coloring for a light green, or more if a deeper shade is desired.