Good friends introduce you to good food

I have a longtime friend named Danae, who lives in NYC. Our parents are very good friends and we practically grew up together. She's older and wiser than me, especially in matters concerning food. It's no surprise that she introduced me to some of my favorite foods, like sushi, and Juniors cheesecake. On one of my trips to visit her she took me to Cake Man Raven. This was the first time I tasted red velvet cake and since I've started baking, I wanted to try to make it myself. So this week I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. I took the recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Brown Eyed Baker.

I also got a chance to try out one of the new pastry tips I bought on my last trip to Miami. I first combined the butter, sugar and egg. Then I mixed the food colouring, cocoa powder and vanilla together into a paste and added it to the sugar butter and egg mixture.The vinegar and dry ingredients were gradually added to the mixture and when it was thoroughly combined, I baked the cupcakes in the oven for 20 minutes. The frosting was made my mixing butter, cream cheese (mmmm cream cheese ), powdered sugar and vanilla. After the cupcakes cooled I piped the frosting on with a piping bag and open star tip.

The cake was moist and fluffy, just how I like my cake and the cream cheese frosting was delicious. But in terms of the taste of the cake it was just ok. One reviewer said she could taste the food colouring, I'd reduce it next time around and see how it tastes. The cake itself wasn't sweet, but the frosting made up for that, adding just the right amount of sweetness. I didn't quite make red velvet that rivals Cake Man Raven's but hey! I bet even Cake Man Raven didn't make his best red velvet on the first try.