Harley Quinn - Red Velvet Cupcake

This past week was very exciting for me! First of all it was the birthday of an amazing girl who I love dearly and second of all I was leaving San Antonio to go to her new home and celebrate her. It was such an obvious conclusion that I would make my Partner in Crime some cupcakes.

Before I had even made this particular cupcake I knew who this cupcake would be for- the Joker's fun loving and sexy girlfriend, Harley Quinn. Her color scheme consists of red, black, and white (which happens to be my favorite colors!). I love this girl. She loves with all her heart, she runs wild and free, she is full of life and childish wonder, nothing ever stops her, she is tender and vulnerable, fierce and crazy, she has a good heart, but tends to do bad things, she loves to laugh and play jokes, she is loyal to a fault, she is random, she longs to be loved. She is Harleen Quinzel and she is my favorite villainess in the DC Universe.

I felt that a Red Velvet Cupcake with a Cream Cheese Frosting would be appropriate. Now I've never made or eaten for that matter Red Velvet Cake. I started making these cupcakes and realized that I would have no idea if the cake was Red Velvety enough or not, but I decided to go with a cocoa based Red Velvet cake and then add red coloring. Everything seemed to be going pretty good and it was time to fill up the cups. I placed my foil liners (which I looooove!!) in the pan and... I stop. Something feels wrong. I realize that I can't remember if I put in...baking soda. {insert panicked girl who is now cussing like nobodies business} This is so not cool. How could I forget an important ingredient?! After having a severe kitchen melt down my hubby convinced to me to take a risk. Add some baking soda and see what happens. What a smart guy he is! :-) I, very tearfully, added the baking soda and waited for a disaster. Hah. No disaster. My cupcakes were saved by the late add in! I finished baking the cuppies and now it was time for decorating.

Harley's colors: Red, White, and Black. My cupcakes had red cake and white frosting (which was awesome! I don't like Cream Cheese, but this frosting was not like sticking a package of CC in your mouth. The extra butter and vanilla masked it so you got a nice CC flavor at the end.). Now I needed something black.

I couldn't help but remember that my girl, Anna, loves marshmallows so that was a good choice for decorations....but....it's still white. I tried different things I could do with marshmallows, but nothing was screaming “this is it!”. Finally I had an idea. Chocolate!!! I melted some chocolate pieces and then dipped the top of the marshmallow in it, added some red sprinkles, placed (well slightly buried) the dipped jumbo marshmallow on top of a frosted cupcake, piped some frosting around the marshmallow since it was tall, then melted some more chocolate and “filled” in the empty spaces between the chocolate tip and the piped frosting to give the allusion that I had poured the melted chocolate on the marshmallow. SEXY!!!

I even added a little surprise in the cupcake by removing some of the cupcake body and filling it with frosting. :-)

My Harley Quinn cupcake was now created and ready to be delivered to my best friend. It was a perfect match...a match that could only be made in cupcake heaven. Hah. Was the cupcake heaven match overkill?? Well...too bad =) I'm cheesy like that!