Green Velvet, if you please

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I really don't know all the legends and tales that go along with St. Patrick's Day, but I sure do like to wear green and make fun food! So that's what I started last night and plan to continue today.

On Monday, I showed you some pictures of the ingredients of what I'm planning to make tonight for supper. Did any of you guess? If you guessed REUBENS, then you are correct. I love reuben sandwiches! I never thought I would because I honestly don't like any of the ingredients separately, but put them together and that is one yummy sandwich. I also like to get reubens from restaurants and that's how I "judge" if a restaurant is really good or not. Aren't I just a superior food critic? Ha! Anyway, Hubby and I get to look forward to those tonight.

As for dessert? Last night I got to have some fun in the kitchen. I was looking at Bakerella's blog and she made these... Green Velvet Cupcakes. I thought-- those look fun, I want to make them too! So I printed off her red velvet cake recipe. Before Biggest Loser started, I put Hubby in charge of making supper and I set about to making the cake. This is one of the first cakes I've made entirely from scratch and it was really cool to watch. I put all the wet ingredients together and didn't mix them at first and it looked like a big science experiment. Then I got to add an entire bottle of green food coloring (Fun!) and stirred it up. Here's what I got:


Doesn't it look so cool? I've never made red velvet cake before, even from a box, so starting with green was definitely an adventure.


Next came the dry ingredients:

















Then I mixed it all together and got a little of this action:


Cool huh? I did love science in school! I decided to make cupcakes, so I could at least share some of my cake. The rest I poured into an 8" cake pan for Hubby and I to enjoy after our awesome Reubens.

In The Oven


Freshly Baked Green Velvet Cupcakes


Our Cake


It wasn't quite as pretty as the cupcakes, it got a little brown on top. But that's the beauty of eating it at home, it doesn't matter!


A Wee Bit O' Cake


And we did. We both bit right into these cupcakes last night and they were SOOO good. I almost could have eaten the cake by itself. But I did make some frosting. I knew the typical frosting of choice is cream cheese, but I didn't have any on hand, so I did some browsing. If you can believe it, I picked one recommended by the one and only Pioneer Woman :) She had recently made some and loved it. The frosting was "The Best Frosting I've Ever Had". To be honest, I could tell the potential was there, but I don't think I let the cooked part, cool down enough prior to mixing it all together. So it was pretty thin and runny. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it on my cake or cupcakes either. I ended up pretty much pouring it on the cake and just letting it drip down the sides. As for the cupcakes, I just dunked the tops of each one into the frosting and then sprinkled some bright green sugar sprinkles on top! Even though I typically like a good amount of frosting on my cakes and cupcakes, this time the cake is definitely the standout and it definitely shines through with a little less icing. I would like to try making the frosting again and hope that it sets up a bit more because of all the rave reviews it received.
Hope you enjoyed my little "green" post and have a Happy St. Patrick's Day!
And someone, please, for goodness sake, tell me what the song is that I'm thinking of in the title! Now that I wrote the words, I can only hear "Green Velvet, if you please" and can't think of the actual words. Anybody? Anybody? Ease my mind!!!!