Red velvet cupcakes? For Valentines Day? I am almost certainly the queen of originality here. Oh! Speaking of Valentines Day, I wrote you a poem:
Dear Valentine,
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Red velvet cupcakes are also red and, additionally, freaking delicious and if you don't make them soon then I'm afraid this you-and-me thing is probably not going to work out. It's not me, it's you.
Ingredients:
- 60g unsalted butter
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 20g cocoa powder
- 1 and half tsps of red food colouring paster, mixed with a little water - total volume should be 40ml
- half a tsp vanilla extract
- 120ml buttermilk
- 150g plain flour
- half a tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 and a half tsp white wine vinegar
For the cream cheese buttercream:
- 300g icing sugar, sifted
- 50g unsalted butter
- 125g cream cheese
- Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3.
- Beat the butter and the sugar together using a freestanding electric mixer, a handheld electric whisk, or just whisk it yourself! Beat until light and fluffy and well combines.
- Add the egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring paste (pre-mixed with water) and vanilla extract to make a very thick, dark paste.
Mmm...tasty. For this I just spooned a load of red food colouring paste into a measuring cup and added a little water at a time to form a scary red goop mixture.
The paste! Mine was actually a lot darker than it appears here but my camera lit it all up all prettily.
- Add this paste to the butter mixture and mix it thoroughly until the colour is even. Pour in half of the buttermilk and slowly beat it in.
- Add half of the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. There should be no streaks of an uneven colour. Add the other half of the buttermilk and beat again.
- ...aaaand then add the second half of the flour and beat once more. Scrape the side of the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the sneaky bits round the edge of the bowl are in there.
- In yet another bowl (this recipe is not very good for those who hate to wash dishes...), mix together the bicarbonate of soda and the white wine vinegar.
- IT GOES ALL BUBBLY!!
- I got very excited.
- Anyway.
- Add this to your cake mixture and beat it will until you're left with a smooth even texture.
- Spoon the mixture into paper cases (mine ended up making about 16 so you may need extra) and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. When they're done, a skewer poked into the middle of the cakes should come out clean.
- Leave them to cool for a little while before transferring them onto a wire cooling rack. It is important that the cakes are cold before you put the cream cheese frosting on them.
- To make the cream cheese buttercream, beat the icing sugar and the 20g of unsalted butter together until well-combined. Add all of the cream cheese and beat it until completely incorporated. Continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Spoon it on, pipe it on, do whatever you see fit. I also mashed up one of the cakes and used its crumbs to decorate all the others!
- Enjoy! Try not to eat them all at once!
The lovely Rebecca with her birthday red velvets!
