L to R: Closeup of cupcake; and my rejected decoration designs, one of which is Nippletastic!
I first encountered red velvet cupcakes at Johanna’s 30th birthday party in New York two years ago. Instead of a birthday cake, she opted for red velvet cupcakes from a famous bakery (I forget which one, but it wasn’t Magnolia). One bite and I was hooked!
As its name suggests, the red velvet cupcake has a lovely deep red colour which you can see better in this cross-section picture. It was a bit scary making the batter, which reminded me of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Marsyas (which in turn was inspired by flayed skin. Eee.).
That aside, the cupcakes turned out well, with a rich velvety, unbelievably soft texture that’s not oily at all. One thing I like about them is that they’re not too sweet, which is made up for by the frosting.
Recipe after the jump!
For these cupcakes, I used a New York Times red velvet cake recipe and added walnuts. You can never go wrong with nuts (unless you’re allergic to them); like little hidden gold nuggets of crunchiness nestled in soft spongy red terra, they really jazz up your eating experience!
Other changes included: changing the fat from oil to butte, just to give it a nice buttery feel; adding an extra egg, since large eggs here in Singapore tend to be medium sized by Western standards; and cutting down the food colouring from 6 tablespoons (eep!!) to about 2 tablespoons. Seriously, who needs that much colouring??
Finally, I used dubdew’s orange-ginger frosting recipe, sans ginger, cos I was too lazy to grate the ginger :p I had a bit of a fracas with the frosting which I’ll detail in another post, but with some added tweaking I managed to fix it.
Red Velvet Cupcakes (makes 30)
3½ cups cake flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)
1½ teaspoons salt
2 cups butter, softened
2¼ cups brown sugar
4 large eggs (Singapore-sized large)
2 tablespoons red food colouring
1½ teaspoons vanilla
1¼ cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking soda
2½ teaspoons white vinegar
2 cups chopped walnuts
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Sift cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl and gently whisk together.
3. Place butter and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until creamed.
4. Beat in eggs one at a time.
5. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.)
6. Add vanilla.
7. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.
8. Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.
9. Divide batter among cupcake tins, place in oven and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, which should be around 20 minutes.
Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (enough for 30 cupcakes)
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
100g confectioner’s (icing) sugar, sifted
3/4 cup cornflour (optional)
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest (about the zest of one small-medium
orange)
1. Beat the butter and cream cheese until creamed and stiff, about 2 minutes.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of orange zest and beat for another 1 minute; set aside the rest for decoration.
3. If the frosting is runny, slowly add the cornflour bit by bit while beating, until the frosting achieves the right consistency. Bear in mind that the frosting will stiffen considerably when you refrigerate it later; the consistency you’re looking for here is somewhere in between. Lift up a forkful and the frosting should take about 2-3 seconds to drop from your fork.
4. Refrigerate for at least 2 – 3 hours for the right consistency; or you can always stick it in the freezer for half an hour, and stir afterwards.
5. Frost the cooled cupcakes, garnish with a pinch of orange zest.
Ta-da!
Eh, when I made the frosting it was actually a lot stiffer than that – it wouldn’t have dropped off my fork if I hadn’t flung it off! Hmm. Maybe try placing the bowl into an ice bath so it doesn’t get too runny while beating? And another point to note is “room temperature” is really a crappy guideline for people living in South East Asia – it actually means temperate room temp, i.e. about 22C, not our usual 28-32C.
oooh pretty. love the blog title and tagline! haha.
w: i’ll definitely try the ice bath idea! as for the frosting – after chilling it, it’s achieved that kind of consistency which you’re talking about. i was just taking into account how the frosting would behave after being in a warm environment for too long 🙂
Nippletastic! *Easily amused*
[…] For the cake batter, I decided to use the recipe from the red velvet cupcakes because I wanted a lovely thick yet spongy density to balance out the rich chocolate. I think […]