All Things Walker: Red Velvet Ice Cream Cupcakes

Hey everyone! I'm SO excited to share this with you today! I feel like it has been awhile since I posted and this post is something I have been pretty excited about! It combines all my favorite things; red velvet cake, ice cream, whipped cream, cake, and sprinkles!!! I know what you're thinking... that is going to be WAY to sweet for me. It's actually not! This dessert is just the right amount of sweetness! AND, the best part is, you can store it in your freezer. They keep in your freezer for quite a while so you will pretty much always have some dessert on hand. :)

I got the idea for this recipe from Rachel at Bubbly Nature Creations. She has quite a few different varieties of ice cream cupcakes so I thought I'd try my hand at one. I must say, they turned out awesomely! I made two different varieties and used a special ingredient from Hobby Lobby. Don't worry, if you don't have a Hobby Lobby in your area, I have included directions on how to make it without this ingredient.

Ingredients:
-Devils Food Cake Mix*
-Ingredients to make cake (on back of box)
-Red Velvet Emulsion (Found at Hobby Lobby)*
-1 Gallon Vanilla or Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
-Homemade Whipped Cream Ingredients (Heavy Cream & Powdered Sugar)
-Sprinkles

Supplies:
-2 cupcake pans
-24 foil cupcake liners

*If you don't want to use the Red Velvet Emulsion, you can just buy Red Velvet Cake mix instead! I would definitely recommend the emulsion though, it makes everything so much more red velvety. :)

To start off, preheat your oven to 350. Mix your devils food cake mix (or red velvet) as directed on the box. Next, spoon about 1 Tbsp. of batter into 12 of your cupcake liners (1 cupcake pan). You are only trying to cover the bottom so don't put to much! Now stick these in the oven for about 15 minutes.

While those are cooking, add 2 Tbsp. Red Velvet Emulsion to the remaining cake mix (if you started with red velvet cake mix, skip this step) and stir it up. Now spoon about 1 Tbsp. of batter into your remaining cupcake liners. Once your first batch is done, stick the other cupcakes in the oven for about 15 minutes.

One both pans have cooked, set them aside to cool completely.

Once cooled, it time for the fun part....Ice cream! The ice cream needs to be somewhat soft so I would set it out for about 10-15 minutes before you work with it. To make the first version, take the pan of with the red velvet flavored cake and fill the cupcake liners the remaining way with ice cream (about 1 scoop). I used vanilla bean ice cream and it was AWESOME! :) Once filled, cover them and put them in the freezer to harden up.

Next take your remaining ice cream and mix in 2 Tbsp. red velvet emulsion. Seriously, this stuff is AWESOME, I had a few spoonfuls while I was filling my liners :) Once you make your red velvet ice cream, fill the chocolate cake liners up with ice cream just like you did before. Again, it will take about 1 scoop of ice cream per cupcake. Once your done, cover them and put them in the freezer to harden up.

While you are waiting, you can make the topping. For the cupcakes that had red velvet ice cream, I topped them with regular whipped cream. You can find the recipe for that here. For the cupcakes with vanilla ice cream, I added about 2 Tbsp. red velvet emulsion to the whipped cream recipe. Can I just say red velvet whipped cream and red velvet ice cream are my new two favorite things. :)

Once you have your whipped cream ready, top your cupcakes with it. You can do this using a Ziploc bag (see whipped cream tutorial) or of course you can use cake decorating supplies. Finally, top your lovely cupcakes with some sprinkles!