Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

Raspberry Cupcakes:

Start with a box of either white cake mix or yellow cake mix.  Normally I would have used a yellow cake mix since that it was I always have, but for some reason I had bought this white cake mix and it was all I had.  You will also need oil, eggs, raspberry extract, fresh raspberries (about 2-3 cups) and cupcake liners.  (Note:  the white cake mix calls for only egg whites and I think that made the cake a little crumbly, so I would use yellow mix since it's calls for the whole egg)

I for whatever reason added this box of vanilla instant pudding mix into the recipe.  I have no idea why, just did...it sounded like something a clever baking person would do.  So I did.  You can leave it out if you want  :)

Make the cake mix according to the directions and mix for 2 minutes. 

(add the pudding mix here if you want to try it)

Prep your liners in your pans.

Take your raspberries and puree them.  Add about 1/2 cup to the cupcake mix (save the rest it's for the frosting).  Then (using the cap from the bottle) pour 4 capfuls of the raspberry extract to the mix and blend it together.  I also added a few drops of red food coloring until it was a nice light pink color.

Fill your liners 2/3 of the way full.  And bake at 350 until toothpick comes out clean.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting:

You will need about 4 cups confectioners sugar, 1 1/2 sticks of softened unsalted butter, 4 oz. softened cream cheese, and the pureed raspberry mixture from earlier.

First cream together the cream cheese, and the butter.  Then add in about 1/2 cup raspberry puree to start with, you can add more if you want.  Now add 1 cup of confectioners sugar at a time and carefully mix with your electric mixer, until all 4 cups have been added.  You can add more sugar if you want your frosting to be stiffer. 

Now fill your pastry bag if you want to pipe the frosting, otherwise you can just use a knife.  Just place frosting in fridge until cupcakes are completely cooled, this will help the frosting firm up a bit too for piping.  Mine wasn't as firm as I normally like it, but it was good enough.  Although it might have helped when I finally did pipe the frosting if the tip of the piping bag wasn't bent shut (I couldn't figure out why the star tip wasn't working, DUH!)

When the cupcakes are completely cooled, then you can frost them and decorate them however you'd like.  A fresh raspberry would be super cute in the middle, I didn't have any left and all I had were sprinkles.  Like I said...not my best cupcake, but they tasted good none the less.  Now the lemon ones I made for Corbyn's end of the year party were good, I will have to post that one soon.