18 Mar 2012

Red velvet cupcakes

 
I have never really been a fan of red velvet cupcakes; I would look at the recipes and think what is the point of just adding loads of food colouring to a normal vanilla sponge with a little bit of cocoa powder? And they never tasted better than a vanilla cupcake when I have bought them. But recently I had some cream cheese to use up and I bought this book, “Making cupcakes with Lola” and I liked the look of the recipe. I was intrigued by the additions of single cream and melted chocolate, and the amount of food colouring was not too excessive compared to some recipes. The actual cake batter tasted and smelled great. I could tell they were going tasted good. They were really good, moist and with a good chocolate hit topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting.









Recipe: makes 12
200g/1.5 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
100g/7 tablespoons soft butter cubed
175g/3/4 cup castor sugar
1 egg beaten
2 teaspoons red food colouring
25g/1 oz. dark chocolate melted
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
120 ml/1/2 cup single cream/light cream

cream cheese frosting
65g soft butter
250g cream cheese
185 g icing sugar

preheat oven to 180 degrees, sift together all dry ingredients. Put butter and sugar in a
bowl and beat until pale and fluffy. slowly beat in egg mixing well. slowly mix in food colouring. Beat in melted chocolate, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Gently fold in half the sifted dry ingrediantes,then half the cream.Repeat with the remaining dry ingrediants and cream. Bake for 20-25 mins. let cool completely before decorating.
to make the frosting beat butter until soft and smooth,add cream cheese and beat on slow speed then add sugar and beat until smooth and glossy. Refrigerate until firm enough to pipe. slice a sliver of the tops of a few cakes to make crumbs to sprinkle on  top.