Red velvet cupcakes

Red velvet cake is American classic. I decided to try to bake it as cupcakes. I reached for red velvet cupcake recipe from 'Cake days. Recipes to make every day special. The hummingbird bakery'. Have to say that all recipes which comes from that book turn out to be  delicious cakes. This recipe wasn't any different. The cupcakes were moist, rich with sweet and creamy frosting, just perfect. Usually this type of cake is decorated with red cake crumbles or sugar sprinkles. I decided to make them more like spring treat and they are decorated with fondant flowers.

Ingredients for 12-16 cupcakes*:

•  120g unsalted butter
• 300g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 20g cocoa powder
• 40 ml red food colouring
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 240 ml buttermilk
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp soda

* If you want to convert this recipe into 3 - layer 20 cm dimension cake you can double the quantities of all ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Put butter and sugar into the electric mixer bowl and beat them until pale and fluffy. Break the eggs one at a time mixing in the scrapings from the sides of the bowl.

In a small bowl stir together the vanilla essence, cocoa powder and food colouring to form a paste. I didn't have enough of liquid food colouring so I mixed about 17 ml liquid food colouring and 1/2 tsp red food colouring in a paste.

Add this mixture into the batter and mix until is completely incorporated.

In a big bowl whisk together the flour and salt. Then add the flour to the batter into two batches alternating with the buttermilk, mixing after each addition.

In another bowl mix the vinegar and soda, and add it to the cake batter. Mix until is fully incorporated.

Spoon the batter into paper cases 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes. Check with toothpick if baked in the middle. 

Leave the cupcakes in the baking tin for a few minutes then transfer to the wire rack to cool them down completely before you frost them.

Ingredients for frosting:

• 100g unsalted butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 226g cream cheese such as Philadelphia

Put the butter and icing sugar into electric mixer bowl and beat on the low speed until the mixture is sandy in texture.

Add the cream cheese and mix together slowly until everything is incorporated. Then increase the speed and beat the frosting until is soft and fluffy. 

Decorate the cupcakes with frosting. Sprinkle with sugar sprinkles or make flowers out of the fondant. Enjoy!

 Happy Easter !