cherry vanilla cupcakes

I saw the recipe for a cherry vanilla cake...it was for valentine's day and was in a heart shaped pan.  well...I know August is far from February, but I do love me some cherry and vanilla goodness.  what's not to love? So I thought it would balance out the chocolate-ness of the cake and brownie pops.

naturally...cherry vanilla cupcakes start with ...CHERRIES! you guessed it!

you can get whole maraschino cherries and cut them in halves, but I lucked out and just happened to buy the "halves" jar.  So all I had to do was separate the cherries and juice...and do my best to not make a good old fashioned cherry coke.  no worries, I refrained.

next up, for cherry vanilla cupcakes, you need VANILLA! and we aren't talking about a 1teaspoon of vanilla extract either folks.  we are talking pure vanilla seeds from a vanilla bean...that you get yourself, with your own hands.  this was a big deal for me.  I'd never worked with vanilla beans. (quite expensive little boogers, and only 2 come in a jar, so they are very valuable!)

you end up mixing the cherries, vanilla seeds, white cake mix and all the goodness it calls for all together.  And I do think this would make a very good cake.  If you do make cupcakes like I did with the recipe, I would cut up your cherry halves into fourths, just to make it a bit smaller for the cupcake.  Regardless, I used my trusty martha cupcake pans (I love them...and her, can't go wrong). 

I use an ice cream scoop to scoop cupcakes.  and they are never perfect...I feel like they are made with more love that way :)

next up, use your trusty kitchen timer...naturally, I trust martha's the most :) and I think it's pretty...

and before you now it, you've got yummy cherry vanilla cupcakes that look amazing b/c you see the vanilla bean seeds among the pinkness and it that makes it seem special. 

add your favorite frosting (I used cream cheese) and your done!