Red Velvet Cupcakes

Valentine's Day is almost here and I was in the mood to cook something; so linking the two together I thought of Red Velvet cupcakes :) I have never made these before so I chose one of Nigella's recipes to go by. Everything was going well until near the end, when the cake mixture started turning brown/black instead of red, which I think was because of the cocoa powder that was added. So, basically I have renamed these Black Velvet cupcakes haha, they do taste nice though! 

You Will Need: 

• 250 grams plain flour 
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (sifted) 
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 
• 100 grams soft unsalted butter 
• 200 grams caster sugar 
• 1 heaped tablespoon christmas-red paste food colouring 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
• 2 large eggs 
• 175 ml buttermilk 
• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3/325°F, and line 2 muffin tins with paper cases.
2. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring - yes all of it - and the vanilla.
4. Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of the dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients. 
5. Finally beat in the buttermilk and the vinegar and divide this extraordinary batter between the 24 cases.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes by which time the redcurrant-sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted, sponge - more maroon acrylic than red velvet, to be honest.
6. Leave them to cool on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting till absolutely cold.

This absolutely killed my arm, so I'd suggest using an electric whisk or an actual machine to do it for you. But yeahh, you see how it is red at this stage?? As soon as I used the cocoa powder, it went brown and then black after baking!! So next time, I won't be using cocoa powder.

I left them in the oven for about 25-30mins because they weren't quite done after the suggested 20mins. But, to test if a cake is done, you just need to lightly press down on the top and see if it springs back up. If it does, then it is ready :)

After they were cool, I decorated them. On Nigella's recipe, it says to make a cream cheese frosting, which there are also instructions for; so if you wanted to have a go at these then follow this link: Nigella's Cupcake Recipe. However, I didn't really like the sound of that, so I just bought a tube of icing and some buttercream, as well as some edible silver pearls :)

Baking is a lot of fun, so even if you don't like the sound of these cupcakes, then try something else such as cookies or brownies :) I will be doing a few posts like these because I do enjoy it, and as you can see, I'm no professional haha, it's just a bit of fun really. 

These basically look like chocolate cakes don't they? Ahh well!

xx