Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Serves:

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups plain flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp pillar box red liquid food colouring
• 2 tsp white vinegar

Cream cheese frosting

• 100g butter, softened
• 250g cream cheese frosting, room temperature
• 1 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160° fan-forced. Line 2 muffin trays with 18 muffin sized patty pans.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda and baking powder. Stir in the caster sugar and mix to combine.

In a jug, whisk together buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs and vinegar with the food colouring.

Pour into the flour mix and fold together until all ingredients are combined well.

Place ¼ of a cup of the mixture in each patty pan and bake for 18-22 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack while making the frosting.

Using a mixer, whip the butter until it is pale and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and sift a little of the icing sugar in at a time until all of it is combined.

Add the vanilla extract and mix well. Beat on high for 3-4 minutes until the frosting is fluffy and pale in colour.

Place in a piping bag and swirl onto cooled red velvet cupcakes.

Notes:

• Make sure you store any of these uneaten cupcakes in the fridge.
• If you don’t have any buttermilk on hand, before you start baking, you can add an additional 2 tsp of white vinegar to regular milk and by the time you need to use it, it will have become buttermilk. Please note that this in addition to the 2 teaspoons already included in the recipe.
• There is no need to use a mixer for this cake batter. You need to pour these into the patty pans as soon as they are mixed and get them into the oven. There is a chemical reaction that happens between the vinegar and the bicarbonate soda that begins as soon as they are mixed together. This makes the cupcakes light and fluffy.
• You can substitute the red food colouring for blue if you want to make blue velvet cupcakes.
• This recipe was created by Jennifer Cheung for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.

Serving Suggestions

Note