A touch of red velvet

Today my best friend came over to make red velvet cupcakes. We went shopping for a few ingredients and then when we came home we realised that we kind of left out the cake patties......... ROOKIE ERROR ALERT ha ha ha hah ahaahahahhsdkjsnjknfgksjngsg anyway we compromised and decided to make a cake instead. :D

Red velvet cupcakes have always been a favourite of mine to bake. My batch this time, however, failed to meet my usual expectations. Somehow, they turned out a little burnt on the outside and even though they tasted as good as the usually do, it just wasn't up to scratch. I'm going to attribute this fault to my best friend HAHA I'm such a great friend!

And here is the recipe, as usual!

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 200g unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon of white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 3-4 teaspoons of red food colouring

Icing

• 500g cream cheese
• 2 cups of pure icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 120g of melted butter

Instructions:

Cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C.
2. Line your cupcake tin with patties.
3. Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl - the flour, cocoa, baking soda and sugar.
4. Mix your wet ingredients together in another bowl - whisk the eggs, vinegar, buttermilk, vanilla essence and butter. (NOTE: don't get too worried if your butter ends up clumped because you're going to mix it in with the dry ingredients anyway, so just try your best!)
5. Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients.
6. Stir in the food colouring (the recipe suggested 1-2 teaspoons but I found that it wasn't red enough at ALL so just play it by ear, because it depends on the strength of your food colouring!)
7. Divide the mixture among your cupcake tin. Try not to fill it past about half way because the baking soda will make your cupcakes expand in the oven. From memory, this mix makes about 12-18 cupcakes, but I could be wrong!
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer test is complete. The skewer test is where you put in a wooden skewer or toothpick into the middle of whatever you're baking, and if there's no uncooked, wet mix on your toothpick, then your creation is ready. :-)
9. Remove out of oven and leave to cool.

Icing

1. Mix butter with icing sugar and vanilla essence. I mean theoretically, you could mix in all the ingredients at once, but I find it easier this way. I don't tend to sift anything I mix together because I just can't be bothered. With pure icing sugar, you usually get really big clumps, so by mixing with the butter first, you reduce the chance of the sugar remained in its clumpy mess.
2. Mix in the cream cheese - I would suggest having it really soft when you mix it in, because it's very thick and can be quite hard to stir. I usually put it in the microwave for about a minute or so, just to really soften it.
3. Stir together until there's no clumps.
4. Taste test!

One of my very favourite things to bake! They're a real crowd pleaser, and I think it's my parents' favourites.

:-{D