Red Velvet Mini Cupcakes

Am so very sorry that I haven't put up anything for a month (?). I was kinda busy here and there, got flu for a while, needed to catch up with house work, and when I was ready to blog the Mac needed a repair. But anyway, finally now I'm catching up on my blog posts!

A couple of weeks ago I was severely craving for a very moist red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to try another recipe and found an "ultra" moist red velvet cake recipe that turned into an ultra disaster. It was nowhere wear good and I had to throw away the whole batch. Afterwards, I quit looking for an ultra moist recipe and just searched for the best red velvet recipe. So then I came across this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 20 ml (up to 50 ml) Queen's Pillar Box Red food colouring
• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp baking soda

Cream cheese frosting:

• 450 gr cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cup confectioner sugar, sifted
• Pinch of salt

How to make:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Prepare the mini cupcake pan and place the patty papers.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix food colouring and cocoa powder evenly.
3. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Then beat in vanilla and red cocoa paste. Add 1/3 of the flour mix to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk. Repeat and end with the last third of the flour mix. Beat until well combined.
4. Mix vinegar and baking soda (it will fizz). Add it to the cake batter and stir well to combine. 
5. Working quickly, spoon the cake batter into the mini cupcake pans half way full. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Check early, cupcakes is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
6. Cream cheese frosting: Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add in the confectioner sugar, salt, and vanilla extract and beat with low speed to incorporate. Then turn the mixer on high and beat until light and fluffy. 

My cuppies have dome-shape top because I put it on fan-forced oven mode

The cream cheese frosting is amazing! The cake is just okay (but maybe because I accidentally put 1 teaspoon of baking soda into the dry ingredients). The color wasn't as I had expected because when the wrapper is ripped open, you can see chocolate cake crumbles. The original recipe calls for 60 ml American food colouring whereas I live in Australia and I think the products here might have a different effect. I contacted Queen's Food (I used their Pillar Box Red food colouring) and they said usually they used about 20ml of colouring for one red velvet recipe. But if you ought to use the whole bottle, it shouldn't give any bitter taste.

I brought some of the cuppies to my halaqah because I couldn't possibly finish it by myself at home and hubby doesn't like red velvets. They said it was good and looked really cute. So, I guess I approve this recipe! ;) 

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