Red Velvet Cupcakes

 

Hello People,

Red Velvet cupcakes with their distinct colour are most cake lovers' favourite. I got to know about red velvet cupcakes from my cousins, most times when there's a celebration in their house, red velvet cupcakes or cakes are present. One distinct feature I noticed, is they are always moist and "fluffy" as compared to other cakes.

So, i went around searching for red velvet cake recipes, one thing that surprised me, was that many of the recipes used vegetable oil instead of baking butter. From info gathered and my "small" experience, using vegetable oil gives the cake its fluffiness and the addition of vinegar and buttermilk keeps it moist and light. This bright red & lightly "chocolated" cake gets its colour from the addition of red food colouring or the juice of boiled beetroot (though people hardly use beetroots these days cos it tends to give the cake a different taste) added to the cake batter while mixing.



Red velvet cupcakes with butter cream frosting & coconut sprinkles

Now to how i make my red velvet cupcakes;
Ingredients:
For Cupcakes
- 280g of baking flour
-180g of caster sugar
- 1.5 cup of vegetable oil
- 3 medium eggs
- 175 ml of evaporated milk (you can use buttermilk)
- 2 tbsps of unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp of vanilla flavour
- 1 tbsp. of baking soda
- 3 tbspns of red food colouring (liquid) *if you are using the gel, a table spoon should be fine as the gel enhances the colour better
- 1 tsp of salt

For Frosting:
100g of baking butter
150g of icing (confectioners) sugar
Half tspn of vanilla flavour
1 tspn of red food colouring

This made 18 cupcakes

Direction:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Place cupcake liners in cupcake tray
2. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and salt together and set aside
3. In a bowl, whisk the vegetable oil and sugar together till perfectly blended, you can use a electric mixer or do it manually with a wooden or plastic spatula
4. Whisk the eggs, add vanilla flavor into it, then add this to the mix above in bits. Mix till fully incorporated. Stop the mixer occasionally to scrape the mixture off the bowl and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula so the mixture blends evenly. Then add the food colouring and mix on medium speed.
5. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in batches, alternating with the milk.

Cupcake batter

6. In a small bowl mix vinegar and baking soda. This should form bubbles. Add this into your batter, mix for about 10 seconds on medium speed.

Baking soda and vinegar mix

7. Scoop the batter into your cupcake liners.

 

Batter ready to be placed in the oven

8. And bake for 18-20minutes or till a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

For the Frosting
9. Cream Icing sugar and butter till light and fluffy
10. Add vanilla flavor & food colouring then mix
*Traditionally, red velvet cupcakes are frosted with cream cheese frosting, but couldn't get cream cheese so I made use of what was available. When making cupcakes again, will def, try out the cream cheese frosting.
11. Allow to the cake to cool on a wire rack, then frost using a piping bag and add your desired sprinkles.


Frosted Red Velvet Cupcakes (*still learning the art of piping)

*Enjoy as a dessert or snack. Great for parties too.
I will like to hear from you how you make yours. Kindly drop a comment

Kitchen Tips:
* You can use softened butter for this recipe instead of vegetable oil. When I made my first red velvet cupcakes I used softened butter i.e beat the butter alone until it becomes fluffy before creaming with the sugar. But if you ask me, I prefer the veg. oil recipe.
*Ensure you use an oil without a strong smell, else you ruin the taste of your cake.
* Allow cupcakes to cool before frosting, to avoid the frosting from melting.

DIY:
*If you can't get Caster Sugar, you can make yours at home:
You will need Granulated Sugar and a food processor or blender
Pour the sugar into the food processor fitted with a metal blade (cover the processor with a kitchen napkin  before placing the lid as your kitchen can get messy cos of the sugar dust produced from making Caster Sugar), then process till it has little or no grains, this should take about 2-3 minutes depending on the quantity of sugar.
Allow to rest for 10 seconds before removing the lid, this is so the dust can settle.
Bakers prefer using caster sugar as it's easier to cream with than granulated sugar cos of its fine grains.

Regards,

Nitie

*Always wash your hands before and after handling food items.