Red Hot Cupcakes

I'm amazed at how long cupcakes have been in style. What has it been now? Four years? It doesn't seem that they are going out of style anytime soon. I am not a baker, so I can not even hope to create those beautiful cupcakes that you see in books and magazines. However, every once in a while, I get a cupcake craving. Around Valentines Day, Brent & I went on a date to Sprinkles, and I had a wonderfully delicious creation called a Red Hot Cupcake. I became obsessed. Brent got me some red hot cupcakes from Sprinkles for Valentines Day (it's like he read my mind!), and then I decided to try and recreate them myself. They were probably the best cupcakes I have ever made. They were very cinnamon-y! And ridiculously easy. I went with the "semi-homemade" method.

Here's the Sprinkles version that I copied. Mine did not look anything even remotely close to this. haha. Oh well, they tasted good!

Cupcakes:

I used Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix. I just followed the directions on the box for cupcakes, but I added about 3/4 cup of red hot cinnamon candies just before pouring into cupcake holders.

Icing:

I used Duncan Hines whipped cream cheese frosting. The key was mixing in about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon extract (found on the baking aisle!)

Decorating:

After baking and cooling, I spread on the icing and topped with red hot candies. Delicious and embarrassingly easy!!