Now, my accomplished cupcake baking friend has a big birthday coming up next week, and for unavoidable reasons, I can't go to her party to celebrate it, so in the spirit of all fairness, have offered to be the cupcake baker for HER. With one small exception..... she doesn't get to pick the type of cupcake. Although I did tell her what I was planning to bake so she could veto it if needed.
What does all this have to do with red velvet cupcakes? Well, I've been reading a number of cooking blogs recently, and red velvet cake keeps coming up. I've never had one, and I was desperate to see what all the fuss was about. In order to be fully prepared for next week's cupcake baking extravaganza, I decided to have a practice run on Saturday, and to have a delicious treat for morning tea with a guest on Sunday. How hard could it be, I figured. HA.
I found a do-able looking recipe on a blog I've been having fun reading, and on Saturday afternoon, I printed out the recipe, wrapped an apron round me, got all the ingredients out and made a start.
Can I just say now, that if I want to keep making things like this (and I really, REALLY do!), then I now desperately need either a Kitchenaid type device or a food processor. Really. Do you know what happens when you try to cream butter with a bowl of sugar with a hand mixer? It goes everywhere. And the butter gets all stuck in the blades. I was a little perplexed by this. After cleaning all the sugar up, I changed tack and mixed it with a wooden spoon instead.
Once it started to look combined and fluffy, I picked my hand mixer up and then, with some trepidation, turned it back in while slowly adding in a large, lightly beaten egg.
The next step is to add cocoa powder, vanilla extract and 20mL of red food dye into a small bowl. Now, to be fair, the idea of using 20mL of food colouring in a recipe was a bit daunting, so I made sure I'd bought some natural food dye rather than artificial stuff (call me silly, but while in general I have no problem with artificial colouring and preservatives, it didn't cost me anymore to make the change, and a friend gave me a hot tip on it). I mixed it all in the bowl until it came together as a thick, very dark coloured paste.
Once combined, I added the paste to the butter, sugar and egg mixed and mixed it until the colour was evenly distributed through the batter.
Next, I slowly added half the buttermilk while the mixer was on a slow speed. This was a little messy, but not as bad as the butter/sugar attempt. Then I slowly added half the flour. Then the second half of the buttermilk and then finished off the with the flour. While simple to do, this step drove my patience to the limit. I so badly just wanted to tip all the milk in and whizz it.... and the same with the flour. But I stuck to my guns and carefully and slowly mixed it all in, sure that there was a good reason for the sedate pace, which I just didn't know.
Once it was all combined and the mixture was combined, I added the salt, bicarb and vinegar. I have to admit, after watching the bicarb and vinegar fizz before I turned the mixer back on, I was at that point, very interested in how this cupcake was going to turn out.
After a couple of minutes of mixing, I spooned the mixture into patty cases I'd put in a muffin tin. Unfortunately, I only have one six-muffin muffin tin, so in an effort for perfection, I had to cook my cupcakes in two lots. I very carefully made sure the cases were only 2/3's full (we've all had cupcake overflow before) and then popped them in the oven for 20 minutes.
I'd just like to say now, the oven in our new house is AWESOME. All my cupcakes were cooked perfectly - unlike the oven in our old flat, which heated more on one side than the other.
While my cupcakes were cooling, I decided to tackle the cream cheese frosting. I'd left the cream cheese out of the fridge for a couple of hours so it was nice and soft (and the butter) and got stuck straight into sifting the icing sugar into a bowl and then popped in the butter, cubed into smallish pieces. Bracing myself, I put the hand mixer into the bowl and turned it on. Icing sugar went everywhere. I turned the mixer off, cleaned up the sugar and took up my wooden spoon. Hubby happened into the kitchen as I was doing this, and kindly offered to have a go. He took up the mixer, put it back in the bowl and turned it on. Unfortunately the spoon was still in the bowl. The mixer flung it across the kitchen in a rain of butter and icing sugar. Hubby acknowledged that this was, indeed, trickier than it looked. He scooped up as much of the sugar and butter as he could, popped it in the bowl and, covering more of the bowl with his spare hand than I could (small hands), turned the mixer on again, assuring me that kitchens were made to get dirty. Eventually the butter and sugar were creamed together and Hubby left me to add the cream cheese and a little bit of food colouring. It really did look good when it was all combined.
I just used a spatula to ice the cupcakes - and even though it was a bit rough and ready, I thought they looked great. As for the taste... the vinegar and bicarb just seemed to give the cupcakes enough zing to avoid the over-sweet taste a lot of iced cakes can have. The cupcakes were light, fluffy and very morish... and have disappeared VERY quickly (although they lasted four days in an airtight container). They were an absolute hit with my Hubby, who is much more of a savoury person. Lets hope they turn out this well when I bake them for my friend next week!
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