Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes, #TheCakeSliceBakers

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Every month a new challenge arrives...Currently, we are presented with the opportunity to bake one of four recipes from Southern Living’s The Southern Cake Book.

This Ninja Baker’s winning choice?
Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes with Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting!

Do you tremble with excitement or fear at a new challenge? Even with Cake Slice Bakers assignments, it seems I’m wired to face foreign concepts and recipes with a bit of trepidation. But, with each accomplishment, I’m exhilarated and excited. So, I’m appreciative to the Cake Slice Bakers for introducing me to greater level of skill in the kitchen and self-confidence.

Thanks to the Cake Slice Bakers, too, a new collection of cookbooks has appeared on my shelf. My current favorite is The Southern Cake Book – the cookbook chosen by the Cake Slice Bakers for 2015.

Creamy cinnamon frosting accompanies velvet rich notes of chocolate cake.

The Southern Cake Book is full of glossy food photos, which reflect the (stereotypical) luxuriously rich and gentile lifestyle of the South. And the scrumptious recipes! Including this month’s Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes swirled with Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, which is out of this world. The chocolate is moist and fudgy. The Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting with the cream cheese base is like a Southern Belle – sweet with a wink of mischievous spice.

For savory cooking, the Southern trinity is onion, bell pepper and celery.
Chocolate, cream cheese and butter make be the trinity of Southern cake making.

I’ve always had a fascination with the South; the gentility, the charm, the good manners and ready smiles…Forgive me if my statements about the South are overly romantic. My impressions of the South are all from movies and magazines. But, impressions can be strong motivators…One Japanese friend moved to Kansas because he was mesmerized by the cornfields pictured in the film Superman. Another friend said sayonara to Japan, hello to Colorado thanks to John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High song….You never know one of these days this Ninja Baker may be saying hi y’all from South Carolina! But then again moving down South would be a new challenge…Hmmm.

Which cupcake is more likely to appear on your dessert table?
Red Velvet or Chocolate Velvet? 

At any rate, The Southern Cake Book’s Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes and Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting is a challenge definitely worth embracing!