Cupcake a Week: Red Velvet Cones

Today is the BIG 40 birthday for my brother-in-law Rob, and as a birthday treat he requested I make him some red velvet cupcake cones! So of course I fulfilled his birthday wish and made these yummy cupcakes a few days early for him since I just happened to be in KY last week for work and was able to visit my family as well! So he got a pre-birthday sweet treat...and then he got another treat today from my sister.

While I was in town I helped my sister (well I really supervised her, by being a bossy older sister standing over her shoulder telling her what to do) make a fondant decoration for a cake she was going to give to him today for his actual birthday. The fondant topper was going to reveal her present to him...a surprise trip to Chicago for the weekend! How cool is that! She was going to take some pictures of the final cake and send them to me, so I'll be sure and update with the final product soon! I think my love for baking and decorating is slowly starting to rub off on her b/c every time I come in town now we find ourselves in the kitchen together working on special baking projects. I keep telling her we need to open a cupcake shop together, but there's only one problem...725 miles is separating us! Well maybe 2 problems, she bakes from a box mix...and I prefer to bake from scratch and I'm not sure I will ever be able to change that about her!

But anyways, back to Rob's cupcakes...they turned out to be absolutely adorable and oh so delicious! I've even got a few tricks to share with you on how to make sure these cones don't topple over in your oven.

If you have a mini muffin tin this works perfect to hold the cones in place and keep them stable while in the oven. I have tried just placing the cones on a cookie sheet before and you have to have some steady hands getting those babies into the oven to keep them from falling over. The muffin pan works wonders because these cones aren't going anywhere. I placed the cones in every other hole to allow enough room for baking and so the rims didn't touch.

Next transfer your cake batter into a large measuring cup and use the spout to pour batter evenly into each cone.

Fill batter to the top of the base of the cone, or slightly less. Do not fill the batter all the way to the top or you will have cake oozing all over the sides of your cone.

For the most part the cakes baked up nice and fluffy, but as you can see the 2 in the back I had a little too much batter in and they started to drip down the edges.

Next is the fun part, adding the frosting in a swirly motion to resemble soft serve ice cream. I used a Wilton tip 1A to pipe on the frosting.

And no ice cream cone is complete without some rainbow jimmies.

I have made several versions of red velvet cake before, but for these cupcakes I decided to use Bakerella's red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting recipe. I have been wanting to try her recipe for awhile now, and let me just say I would definitely use it again, delish!

Using her recipe I was able to make 12 cupcake cones and then an 8 x 8 pan of cake (I used the extra cake to make some red velvet cake lollipops...my fave!). I baked the cones for about 18 minutes.

Happy 40th Birthday Rob! Hope you had a great day and enjoy your weekend in Chicago, I'm jealous!

Have you ever made cupcake cones? Do you have any tips and tricks you want to share, or tell me about your favorite flavor, I'd love to hear from you!