Red velvet cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

This may shock you but I’d never had a proper red velvet cake before; I think I was always turned off by the cream cheese frosting because, while I love cream cheese in a cheesecake I’ve never been a fan of it in frosting.

Red cupcakes! I have no idea of the significance on dying them red...other than it couldn’t be called red velvet cake!


This recipe featured on a national newspaper’s website and was billed as the Magnolia Bakery’s recipe. I can’t vouch for that but it was certainly a nice cake and didn’t use cream cheese in the frosting. Their recipe did include a buttercream but it was so sweet that even I couldn’t stomach it, so I picked a buttercream recipe from my stash of cookbooks.

Yes, this is edible glitter:


The cupcake turned out far denser than other cupcakes I have made and ultra moist. It had a rich taste which is probably due to it using far more ingredients than a normal cupcake.


The recipe set out below makes 24 cupcakes but I halved it, even down to using only 1.5 eggs, and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes (makes 24):
165g unsalted butter, at room temperature
500g caster sugar
3 eggs
6 tablespoons red food colouring
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
330ml buttermilk
500g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons cider vinegar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder

For the buttercream (if you like lashings of buttercream you may want to double the quantities):
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
350g icing sugar
3 tablespoons boiling water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until well combined and pale.
- Beat the eggs in one by one.
- Beat in the red colouring, cocoa powder and vanilla.
- Beat in a third of the buttermilk, followed by a third of the flour and repeat until both are completely added to the mix.
- In a small bowl, stir together the cider vinegar and baking powder then stir into the batter.
- Spoon into the paper cases and bake for approx 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 25 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Now make the buttercream: beat the butter until it is soft.
- Beat in the icing sugar.
- Beat in the boiling water and vanilla and beat until the buttercream is smooth and pale.
- Spread over the top of the cupcakes.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.