Red Velvet

I was put in charge of dessert for Mt Zion's adult instruction class on Sunday, which got cancelled, but I still have these beauties. Anyways, where was I? Yes, I have a thing for cupcakes. They're just easier than cake, to me and less messy, I think. I decided to make a  variety of cupcakes. First up were these red velvet cupcakes. I wanted to try something new and different. Shall we get started?

Here are your dry ingredients: sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and flour. Mix them all together. I usually use a whisk to mix it well and get lumps out as needed. It makes it a little fluffier too.


This is what you will be using to for wet ingredients: buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, red food coloring, vegetable oil, and white vinegar. Yes, white vinegar. It's okay. It'll taste fine. Don't worry.


Mix all your wet ingredients together. It will look like this kind of. (Mine has little specks because I ran out of food coloring and had to use the gels.) Yours won't have specks, unless you use gel food coloring. Get it?


Now slowly add your dry ingredients. When it's all said and done it'll look like this. Pretty thick don't you think? It's okay. It'll turn out just fine.

Have you ever wondered why Kellee's cupcakes always turn out perfectly? All of them always look exactly the same. She share her little secret with me. This scoop. It makes the cupcakes perfect. It makes them all the same size. Nice, huh?

See? Perfect and beautiful. ;)

I forgot to photograph the  frosting making part. That might have something to do with the fact that I invited Kellee over to help with the cupcakes and she just got right to work while I sat around and watched. That's why it's good to have a friend like Kellee. She gets down to business and brings books and things for you to look at while she does all the work. It's perfect. So back to the frosting. This is fantastic frosting. In fact, I could probably just eat the frosting plain and be happy. It's a cream cheese, butter frosting. Mmm... Can't go wrong there. The recipe is listed below.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Yield: about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (1 oz.) liquid red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt; whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla and vinegar.  Beat on medium speed until well blended.  Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners.  Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.  Let cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes.  Mix in the vanilla extract.  Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.  Frost cooled cupcakes.

Thank you to Annie's Eats for providing this recipe. I love her blog!

All in all these cupcakes were pretty good. They were slightly on the dry side, so I might make a few adjustments if I try this again. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.