When I first saw this recipe on Pinterest I fell in love!  How clever to turn red velvet cupcakes (my least favorite color) into my favorite color, blue! Blue velvet cupcakes.  It was a lot of fun making these cupcakes.  They turned out absolutely gorgeous and yummy too!  These cupcakes have a special destination too. Tonight is my brothers annual BYU vs. utah pre-game party.  If you don’t know these teams are huge rivals here in Utah!  This game is big and we really get into it.

Here is my son Levi. He is the biggest 2 year old BYU fan I know!  His room is decorated with BYU decor, he knows the fight song and always says, “Go Cougars!”  He doesn’t understand the rivalry yet but he will one day.

Back to the cupcakes.  Look how beautiful the blue color turned out! The key is a good amount of royal blue gel coloring and a hint of violet.

(Here’s a little update now that it’s Friday night and after the party… The cupcakes were a huge hit and were gone pretty quickly. My brother couldn’t stop eating them and said they were the best cupcakes I’ve ever made!)

The middle looks so pretty too. And the cream cheese frosting adds the perfect touch to these amazing blue cupcakes.  You could adapt this recipe to your own teams colors or make these for a birthday using the birthday person’s favorite color.  But I must say you can’t beat the color blue, it’s an amazing color and for me it shouts, “GO COUGARS!”

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

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Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 sticks butter, room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon Wilton royal blue gel food coloring
• 1 small dab of violet gel food coloring (just dip in a toothpick and use that amount)
• 2 ½ cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon vinegar

Frosting:

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Instructions

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line cupcake pans with liners. (makes about 26)
2. Cream sugar and butter in mixing bowl till light and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg.
3. Mix cocoa and food coloring together to make a paste—this takes a couple of minutes but comes together nicely; add this paste to sugar mixture and mix well again.
4. Sift flour and salt, and add to creamed mixture a bit at a time, alternating with buttermilk, then mix in vanilla.
5. Combine baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl and add to cake batter; mix just to combine.
6. Scoop thick batter into cupcake liners filling about 2/3 full, and bake from 20-25 minutes; watch for toothpick inserted in center to come out clean.
7. Remove cupcakes from oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Frosting:

1. Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla with electric mixer until nice and smooth.
2. Add sugar gradually and beat on low till combined, then beat on high speed until very light and fluffy about 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Frost cupcakes using either a pastry bag with a tip or put frosting in a freezer zip lock bag and cut a small corner to use for frosting cupcakes.