Easy Red Velvet Cupcakes
The American classic. Without the food colouring it would be a basic chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting. Add 30ml of bright red and you get a Red Velvet. And they are stunning both to taste and look at plus as a bonus they're very easy.
My niece and I made these last week when she holidaying from work for a week. I call her my niece but we're more like - and grew up as - sisters. We spent much time chatting and laughing and not enough time focussing on the frosting which went a little too droopy - tasted beautiful enough however we should really have added more icing sugar to the mix before piping it out.
Hey ho, you win some you lose some. Everyone still enjoyed them.
Ingredients:
60g unsalted butter/margerine
150g white sugar (caster or granulated works fine)
1 egg, beaten
20g cocoa powder
30ml red food colouring (don't use the natural versions you can buy - the ones I've found work best are Silver Spoon and Dr Oetker)
15ml Vanilla Essence/Extract
2-3 tbsp's milk
150g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Method:
1) Cream the butter and sugar together until well combined, then add the beaten egg.
2) Add in the sifted flour (bit by bit to avoid the cloud), baking powder and cocoa powder. Mix well.
3) Add the milk, vanilla and the food colouring and whizz well for about 30 secs to get lots of air into the mixture. Your batter will soon be a red silky loveliness.
NO TASTING!
4) Divide into cases, I would advise filling to about 2/3's of the way up the paper case as they cupcakes do rise like mountains!
5) Bake at 170C for about 20mins. Check periodically though as we all know ovens are different. This is how long they took in my electric fan oven. They will spring back when prodded if fully baked.
WASH UP
6) Allow to cool and in the meantime you better gets to whipping up that cream cheese frosting for the topping!
You Will Need:
200g cream cheese (philadelphia or similar)
115g butter/margerine - softened
150g icing sugar (maybe a little more depending on consistency)
1tsp vanilla extract
Method:
1) In your mixer bowl place the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and icing sugar (bit by bit). Whizz until smooth but pipe-able.
2) If your mixture is too sloppy, add more icing sugar. Too thick, add a wee bit of milk.
3) Spoon into your piping bag with chosen nozzle already in place and away you go...
Enjoy :)
Thanks for reading
Lots of Love
K xx