lip-smacking good: red velvet cheesecake mousse in chocolate cups

I am always looking for delicious, party-friendly recipes that have big impact but can be made quickly and easily.  This red-velvet cheesecake mousse fulfills all of this criteria.  I made some for Diane's Baby Shower and had several guests ask me for the recipe. What's more, all of the mousse cups were gone by the end of the shower.  My modifications to this recipe appear below:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c soymilk
1 box cheesecake flavored instant pudding mix
1/2 c red velvet cake mix
3/4 small tub cool whip
1 bag chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Combine soymilk and pudding mix in medium bowl.
2. Mix in cake mix.
3. Fold in cool whip and use hand mixer to incorporate thoroughly.
4. Melt chocolate in microwave and pour into rounded cup mold.
5. Freeze molds until chocolate becomes hard (15-20 minutes).
6. Pop out chocolate from molds and spoon mousse into cups (you can use icing decorating tool instead of spoon if you prefer)

brunch

ingredients for a successful brunch:

friends
red velvet pancakes
an extra-large dog bone
powdered sugar
conversation
fresh-squeezed orange juice
card table and extra seating brought in from the patio
growling tummies
something to celebrate

lip-smacking good: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes in some adorable silicone footed cups given to me by a coworker

Red Velvet Cake is one of my favorite desserts.  I realize its just chocolate cake with red food dye, but there's a quality about it, a je ne c'est quoi feel to red velvet that sets it apart from chocolate cake.  It could be, too, that the cream cheese frosting helps a bit.

A while ago, I decided to try my hand at red velvet cake from scratch, and also made my own cream cheese frosting (a 3rd generation, no fail frosting recipe that will have people talking for weeks).  I've also made this frosting when baking sugar cookies and carrot cake.

I used this recipe from Martha Stewart to make the red velvet cake, and ended up making regular and bite-sized cupcakes.

Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes

Then, to make the frosting:

1 stick butter (softened)
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened)
1 lb powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 C coconut (optional.  makes it harder to dye the icing, and some people are not huge fans of coconut.  the frosting is delicious either way)
 

Mix together well with mixer. For extra frosting to cake ratio, do one and a half this frosting recipe and you'll have plenty for the cake and some leftover (for spreading on graham crackers, regular crackers, sugar cookies, fruit, cardboard, or eating by the spoonful).  I decided to color some of the frosting using some neon pink food coloring I got from the grocery store.  Happy baking!