Red Velvet Cupcakes

Submitted by Heather

Have you ever had Red Velvet Cupcakes? You should try this recipe, whether you have or have not.  They're hard to describe, except to say that they're delicious. They have a tiny bit of cocoa, but they're not supposed to taste like chocolate, so don't expect it. They're a little tangy, though that doesn't sound quite right either. They're just good, so try them.

As crazy as it may sound, I never had a red velvet cake until about 2 years ago. I'd never heard of it before and wasn't really sold once I tasted it.  Maybe that was because it was store bought.  Since then, I've had a few more chances to taste red velvet cake and have definitely become a fan. Just a bit of advice -  stay away from the red velvet cake mix.  It's no where near as good as homemade and actually tastes kind of strange.

So, on to the recipe. I got this from a great food blog called annies-eats.com. She has lots of great recipes, but I particularly liked that this recipe had been tested against at least 4 other red velvet cupcake recipes to see which was the best (this one).  I also posted this recipe on my friend Lara's blog, Recipe Shoebox, after she very kindly asked me to do a guest post around Christmastime.  Check out her blog - she's got some wonderful recipes.  After you make these cupcakes, give most of them away so you don't eat them all. They have a lovely, unique flavor that's hard to resist!

**Before we had this little blog, I guest posted this recipe on my friend Lara's blog - Recipe Shoebox.  I put a lot more pictures of the steps on that post, so go check it out if you'd like to see more process steps. 

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 (you may want to double this):

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, sift together the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.  It's important to sift, since I've found that cocoa sometimes doesn't break up with a whisk and you're left with little brown chunks in your batter.  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 as desired. My favorite way is to put the frosting in a piping bag fitted with a large star or circle tip.  It gives it a fancy look.

*If you're using gel food coloring, you're going to just have to eyeball the quantity.  I would suggest, though, that you mix the gel coloring in a small bowl with some of the batter, so that you don't get any gel chunks in your batter.  Not that that happened to me or anything.

Recipe Source:  Annie’s Eats