Is this icing the best ever or just too much?

I wanted to start this entry with a huge THANK YOU to everyone who's been reading and sending this on to others. Earlier this week by blog passed the 500 view mark with people reading from countries all over the world! When I started this only a few weeks ago, I had no idea what the response would be like. I am extremely touched for everyone's continuous support. 

So after what I consider to only be the mediocre biscotti earlier this week, I thought I would try the red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and see if it lived up to the hype that it is on Cake Boss. Even before I had made this recipe, the response of excitement I was getting from friends was way more than I anticipated. I have never seen people get so excited over the fact that I was baking. I was never a big fan of red velvet cake before, but I know that it's a favorite for some people. Much like a lot other recipes that came before, I had never made a red velvet cake... or even a cake from complete scratch for that matter. I have made frosting plenty of times before, but cream cheese icing was a realm I was also unfamiliar with. I can honestly say that these red velvet cupcakes with the cream cheese icing was the post popular baked item for my blog to date! There were people who don't love red velvet cake, who really enjoyed these cupcakes, myself included.

One observation that I made was about the cream cheese icing. I think that people either LOVE cream cheese icing, or they just simply don't like it. I'm not a fan of cream cheese icing, and even though I thought these cupcakes were good, the icing still didn't appeal to me the way a good butter cream icing does. I heard similar remarks from others who feel the same way about cream cheese icing as I do. Because the cupcakes were technically two recipes, I had two separate grades on the grading sheet this week. This way people could evaluate the cake and icing separately. For people who are a fan of cream cheese icing they gave this an easy A, many saying that it was one the best cream cheese icing that they've ever had. Even those who weren't fans of the icing still gave it a pretty high grade.

Overall the grades for the icing AND the cake were a solid A. Many of the graders gave an A to both the icing and the cake, with some even adding a plus to the end :). There were a handful of people who loved the cake and just liked the frosting, and a couple to who the icing lived up to their standards, but not the cake. Some of the comments were:
"Awesome icing! The cake is flavorful, moist and just delicious. I <3 Red Velvet cake!"
"Moist, perfect  combination. I love them!"
"Amazing! Best cream cheese icing I've had in years!"
"AMAZING!! The cake is the perfect texture and the icing is not too sweet- DELICIOUS!"

I'm glad to see that this recipe basically lived up to the hype that surrounded the announcement:

YUMMMMM!

From the baking perspective, this recipe was fairly straight forward and accessible to even the most basic baker. Even though I've made many cakes before, this is the first one entirely from scratch and I managed not to mess it up! I wouldn't say that I've been converted into a red velvet fan, but for this recipe- I am a big supporter. I think that these cupcakes set a new standard for the blog, and we will have to see if anything else in the book can match up or even triumph over the red velvet cupcake with the cream cheese icing. Also a quick shoutout and thanks to Danielle for taking my question seriously from the last entry and trying to find out why red velvet is red!

Keep reading, commenting, giving feedback, sending to friends, etc. Also a couple of guest bloggers might be appearing in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for that.Thanks everyone once again for all of your support!!!