Red Velvet Cupcakes

Had to make 2 of these on consecutive days.

I do not particularly care for red velvet. I will make it if it is a birthday request, but I will judge the asker for having terrible taste in cake. This recipe comes from Preppy Kitchen (https://preppykitchen.com/best-red-velvet-cake/), but I made cupcakes instead. I have modified the recipe slightly for a moister cake, and I have used a different cream cheese frosting recipe, adapted from Baking a Moment (https://bakingamoment.com/cream-cheese-frosting/). This will make 18 cupcakes really scraping the bowl, or 12 big cupcakes. It will make 2 x 8" layers, or 3 x 6" layers. You will have a lot of icing left over, which is ok, because cream cheese icing is the bomb.

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

2 ½ cups / 300g plain flour

1 tsp / 6g kosher salt

1 tsp / 6g baking soda

½ cup / 113g unsalted butter, room temperature,

1 ½ cups / 300g granulated sugar

2 Tbsp / 30g vegetable oil

2 eggs room temperature

3 tbsp / 18g cocoa powder

2 tsp / 10ml vanilla extract

1 cup / 240ml / 245g buttermilk, room temperature*

1 Tbsp / 15ml red food dye, or one small tube

Use good quality food dye, I used one full gel tube.

1 Tbsp / 15ml white vinegar

White cyder vinegar will work fine

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

2 1/4 cups / 500g unsalted butter, room temperature

500g full fat cream cheese, at room temperature

1 Tbsp extract

1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

¼ tsp salt

10 cups / 1,125g icing sugar, sifted

Instructions:

For the Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350˚F / 180˚C, and prepare a cupcake pan with liners.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl, set aside.

In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter.

Add in sugar and vegetable oil, and mix on medium until light and fluffy, c. 2 minutes.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract.

Give the bowl a good scrape here.

Add red food colouring and vinegar to the buttermilk, mix in.

Sift in cocoa powder to the butter mixture.

Add c. 1/3 of the flour mixture, mix to combine. Add c. ½ of the buttermilk mixture, mix to combine. Repeat. Add the last c. 1/3 of the flour and mix until smooth and combined.

Again, give the sides a good scrape.

Fill the cupcake liners c.1/2-2/3 full and bake 18-20 minutes, or until they pass the clean knife test.

Let cool in the cupcake pan for c. 5 minutes before moving to a rack to cool completely.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

Cream the butter until light and fluffy, c. 2 minutes.

Add the cream cheese, vanilla extract, lemon juice and salt, beat until combined.

Sift in the icing sugar in 3 additions, and beat until you have an icing.

Failsafe dishcloth over the mixer helps keep in sugar billows.

Add more sugar to stiffen it up if needed.

*I had some milk that was going out of date so I made my own buttermilk here. To do this, add 1 Tbsp of lemon juice to 1 cup of whole milk, and let sit 5-10 minutes. Alternatively, low fat plain yogurt also works, don't forget that gross yogurt water that accumulates on top.