That title is about to get a little more funny.

Read on. You’ll see.

This past weekend, a pregnant chick I had just met was talking about this new cupcake place she had been to. She said the cupcakes were amazingly delicious. She mentioned that one cupcake had salted caramel frosting and she loved it.

I had never heard of salted caramel before. I like salt. I like caramel. But together? I needed convincing.

And anyway, this woman is pregnant… her tastebuds can’t be trusted, can they? I know mine were whacked out when I was pregnant.

Still, I was intrigued.

Every Monday night for the past several weeks, has found me at my friend Jenny’s house with Hollie (the business card destroyer), watching making fun of the Bachelorette. One week, Jenny had brought some nummy gourmet cupcakes to share. She had mentioned her affinity for red velvet. I had never had red velvet before, but it sounded so decadent, so… well, velvety.

I decided I wanted to try my hand at some red velvet cupcakes and test out that whole crazy salted caramel frosting business, so yesterday, I set to work.

I immediately hit two roadblocks. One, no white vinegar. Thankfully, my neighbor hooked me up with some.

Then, I ran out of red food coloring, even after borrowing some from my neighbor as well. This recipe (doubled) called for FOUR tablespoons of red food coloring. I dunno… I’m not a culinary genius, but I feel like that’s overkill. Is Paula Dean trying to appease the vampire foodies out there? Still, I didn’t have anywhere near four tablespoons, so I added in a teaspoon of blue.

What happens when you combine red and blue?

Sure, you may have had red velvet cupcakes. But have you had purple velvet cupcakes?

Purple is the new red, anyway, in case you haven’t heard.

This first batch didn’t turn out so well. You see, I had just washed those nifty silicone mini baking cups in soap and water the night before. When I snagged a cooked cupcake to taste test (thank God I did), it tasted like my dish soap.

Yumm-o.

The next batch were normal sized cupcakes and this bad boy blessed me with his presence:

Tell me that doesn’t look like a penis.

(Have you connected with the title of the blog yet? Wait for it… Ha! Oh yeah, you did.)

Friends of mine and I joked that this purple penis cupcake resembles what happens when a dude gets blue-balled too often. Looks like a painful affliction, if you ask me.

Back to cupcake baking.

This is only a fraction of what I baked.

See my little purple man-part cupcake on the left?

I decided not to frost him. I decided to keep him intact.

Intact!

HAAAA!

(Tell me I’m not laughing at my own penis jokes here…)

Then, of course, there was the delicious and oh-so fattening frosting. I’m a big fan of the frosting. The cupcake is all right, of course, but it’s merely a vessel for the good stuff. Much like vegetables are the vessel for ranch dressing. You can’t simply eat frosting, nooo! That would be downright disgraceful. Yet somehow, eating frosting atop a baked good is perfectly acceptable.

I made the salted caramel from scratch, which I combined with cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar to make a little something I like to call… Heaven.

The other frosting was a simple cream cheese that I topped with crushed pecans and a raspberry. For fun, I decided to put some pecans on some of the caramel ones too.

The whole time I was icing the cupcakes, I worried about becoming a feature on Cake Wrecks. I kept running through my mind all of the horrible piled-on icing jobs I had seen. I just know Jenny would turn me in. She’s devious like that.

Thankfully, they turned out beautifully (if I do say so myself).

And they tasted sooo good.

I had so many, not only did I bring them to Bachelorette night, I gave a bunch to three different neighbors and still had far too many left over.

Overall, a baking success!

What shall I attempt next time…

If you want these awesome recipes, check out the salted caramel frosting here at Nosh With Me and the Red Velvet Cupcakes and Frosting here, at Food Network!