Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Red Velvet cupcakes.  What a perfect Valentine's Day treat, right? It's red, it's chocolate, it's delicious, what else can you ask for?

So, that's what I made. I found a recipe for these delicious red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing over at The Cake Mistress, and it looked both delicious and easy, which it was.

Tilt shift does not really add anything to photos of mini cupcakes.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing
Makes 12
Cupcakes
60 g (~3T)  unsalted butter, at room temperature
150 g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1 large egg
10 g cocoa powder*
20 ml red food colouring**
1/2 t vanilla extract
120 mL (1/2 cup) buttermilk
150 g (1 1/4 cup) plain flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t bicarb (baking) soda
1 1/2 t white wine vinegar***

Cream Cheese Icing
300 g (2 cups) icing sugar, sifted ****
50 g (2 1/2 T) unsalted butter, room temperature
125g cream cheese, softened (half a standard Philadelphia block)
1 t vanilla extract

Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 170C/340F and line cupcake tin with cupcake papers.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light in colour and fluffy.
3. Mix egg in a small bowl and gradually add to butter and sugar mix, beating until thoroughly mixed.
4. In another small bowl, mix cocoa powder, food colour and vanilla extract, mixing colour throughout and forming a paste.
5. Add paste to butter mixture and beat until mixed throughout. Scrape the sides of the mixing bowl down with a spatula as needed.  The batter will be a dark-ish pink colour at this point.
6. Beating on a low setting, add half the butter milk, mix, then add half the flour, repeat until all ingredients are combined.
7. Add the vinegar, salt and bicarb and beat until just combined.
8. Spoon mixture into paper cases in cupcake tin, filling until ~2/3 full.
9. Bake 20-25 minutes in centre of oven.

Icing

1. Beat icing sugar and butter until grainy and well mixed.
2. Cut cream cheese into small cubes and add them individually.
3. Add vanilla.
4. Beat mixture until desired texture (should be light and fluffy).
5. Transfer to piping bag or use a butter knife to decorate cupcakes once they've cooled to room temperature.

* There is a difference between baking cocoa and drinking cocoa, a huge difference. I also recommend, if your grocers carries it, to get the 70% or 80% Green and Black Organic baking cocoa, because it is the absolute best.  I could only find some Cadbury this time.
** Food colouring - I recommend using the liquid food colouring, but this may also be because I more often than not have it lying around the house so its easy
*** Many recipes I've looked at called for plain white vinegar, so this could be used as a substitute if you're not a vinegar snob like me.
**** Wow, this is a lot of notes. So, I never used to sift ingredients until I made this one cake, and then all of a sudden I realised it DID make a difference.  That being said, my icing sugar got half sifted half food-processed, because the icing sugar at the store was ALL bricklike

A helpful hint - take out the egg and butter ahead of time and let sit on counter for 1-2 hours while you enjoy a cup of coffee and a few chapters of a good book. I tend to do this with anything I cook anyways, room temperature eggs always make recipes taste better.

Another note to add here, using an icing bag is way more fun for icing cupcakes, you can make beautiful swirls, or something that is supposed to be a swirl, and you end up with way more icing on each cupcake. This is a good thing. However, if you're pressed for time, lazy, or trying to make a sad attempt to make your cupcakes healthier by having less icing on them, you can spread the icing on using a butter knife. You can still make the cupcakes pretty using this method, and is especially good if you plan on adding sparkles or chocolate shavings or etc on top of the icing.  I actually went back and added more icing after these photos were taken, and I still have leftover icing in the fridge. I wonder what I shall do with it.. wait, where's that spoon?

I made these for a special Valentines desert for the boyfriend, we enjoyed them, and the leftovers that I took to my office lasted less than an hour (no surprise there).