Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Really, doesn't the title say it all?

Well, maybe a photo or two will help illustrate the point.

Last week I bought a mini muffin tin. I had it in my head that, if I am going to insist on baking cupcakes constantly, it would be better to have minis. Because then the kids get the joy of eating two cupcakes, and I get the joy of knowing that 2 mini cupcakes are actually smaller than one regular cupcake. Don't you love that logic?

With Valentine's Day coming, I thought red velvet cupcakes were in order. The girls both adore Valentine's Day, what with the pink, the purple, the hearts, the sweets...

Nobody wanted to help bake them. They were too busy practicing cartwheels. Nora did come in to check on me at one point. Her comment? "Why are you filling those little cups with ketchup?" You see it too, don't you?

While the ketchup cakes were baking, I mixed up the cream cheese frosting. I used 1 1/2 bricks of Neufchatel. It was all I had in the fridge, I swear. But look at those flecks! Those are not poppy seeds. Those are specks of vanilla bean. I am slowly using up the vanilla I made last year.

Here's one rack of minis cooling. Yes, there's another rack cooling, too.

Dana sampled one by stuffing the entire thing into her mouth in one bite.

One rack of frosted mini cupcakes. Final cupcake count: 88. Not a typo- I ended up with eighty-eight teeny tinies. I know.

But aren't they so cute? Nora said, "Mom, the frosting is good, but the cupcakes are great!" Coming from a girl who normally licks off the frosting and throws the cake away, that was pretty awesome to hear.