Red Velvet Cupcakes

Dear Readers, let me ask you an important question: if it was your birthday, and you could have any type of cupcake, what would you choose? I think the answer here is pretty rhetorical… and if you were thinking something other than Red Velvet, maybe this post isn’t for you…

There are three things you need to know about Red Velvet cake:

1. It is tasty

2. It is pretty

3. It comes with Cream Cheese Icing (read: TASTY)

Could you ask for anything more in a cake?

When we at scrambledeggsetc had the brilliant idea of baking some Red Velvet cupcakes for Caroline's birthday we knew only the best would do. Enter: Martha Stewart.


THE RECIPE(s):


Red Velvet Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted

2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (we used regular cocoa powder and it worked fiiiine), silly Martha and her fancy pants cocoa. 

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

2 large eggs at room temperature (question: is there REALLY a difference between a regular egg and a large egg? what about EXTRA large eggs? do they come from extra large chickens? do they actually make a difference in your cake???? if someone has the answers to these questions please enlighten us). 

1/2 teaspoon red food gel/paste*

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons white vinegar (Martha uses "distilled" vinegar, I don't know why, nor do I care). 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Sift cake flour, cocoa and salt together into a large bowl and whisk until incorporated.

3. In a separate bowl or stand mixer, whisk together sugar and oil until combined on medium-high speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food colour and vanilla.

*Martha, in all her baking glory, insists that you are better off using a red food gel or paste instead of your standard grocery store food coloring. [If you DO use regular food coloring you have to dump at least a whole bottle of it into your batter - thats a whole lot of stuff-i-don't-know-what-food-coloring-is-actually-made-of going into your cake. Meanwhile, you only need 1/2 a teaspoon of food gel). 

It's also a fantastic excuse to make a trip to William Sonoma! (Ohh what a shame). Caroline picked up a set of William Sonoma’s “Food Paste Set, Vivid Color” for $22, where she chatted with the sales associate about our plans to bake Red Velvet cupcakes. She told Caroline that this food paste was perfect for Red Velvet (or Blue Velvet) as well as icing for decorating cakes and cookies. Martha's insistence AND William Sonoma's approval? Needless to say we have definitely jumped on the food gel bandwagon. 

*ahem* now where were we?

Caroline demonstrates: the Fun Part!
Look at how much fun she is having...

4. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each.

5. And now the fun part: in a small bowl, stir together the baking soda and vinegar – and it will foam! (Just like grade 3 science class?)

6. Add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed for about 10 seconds.

7. Spoon batter into lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. We find an ice cream scoop works well for this.

8. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester (or toothpick if you don’t have a cake tester, like us) inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

9. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

10. To finish, use a small offset spatula (or a knife or whatever you find easiest to work with) to spread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting...

1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, 

room temperature

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (a standard package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese is 8 ounces, so you’ll need one and a half packages)

4 cups icing sugar, sifted

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Beat butter and cream cheese with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1 cup at a time, and then vanilla; mix until smooth.

And now for some Red Velvet Cupcake "Words of Wisdom"...

Unlike cooking, where you can experiment with measurements and ingredients etc... baking is very precise. This is perhaps especially true for this recipe, which is slightly more complicated than your standard cake (with all the baking soda/vinegar-ness and what not). 

On a completely opposite note, we did find that the cupcakes were a little bit oily. Not taste-wise (they were delicious, as if you needed to know), but the bottoms of the cupcake tins and liners were a little wet - solution: add less oil next time! 

Remember to add the sugar to the oil and NOT to the other dry ingredients. Not that we made this mistake or anything... and had to start all over again... no, no, we scrambledeggsetc bloggers are PERFECT.

If your cocoa powder is a bit lumpy take a second to sift it. We didn't thinking it would be fine once we whisked everything together. Alas, we ended up with funny brown spots on our cupcakes (not that you could see them once they were frosted, and it didn't seem to change the taste... but still). 

Finally, remember that when you add the food gel to the mixture, it hasn't been mixed with the cocoa powder yet, and that the cocoa powder will alter the hue of the red. A.K.A if you can't seem to get that perfect, rich Red Velvet color wait until you've added the cocoa. You can always add more gel afterwards. 

Oh.. and if you are planning on taking some picture of your cupcake (and honestly, they are so absolutely gorgeous why wouldn't you?), make sure you come up with some artsy *cough*awesome*cough* display for them. A piano is totally a natural spot to find cupcakes right?...

Happy Baking :) 

Caroline and Jo