I succumbed and brushed aside all my worries about overusing food colour. I’m so glad I did. The last time I tried making red velvet cake and cupcakes, I was paranoid about using too much red food colour and therefore wound up with tasty, but only ‘reddish’ velvet. I also used a recipe that had a lot of cocoa so the poor food colour didn’t stand a chance.
Not this time. Presenting red velvet cupcakes, 2.0.
Turns out, vinegar is what helps the food colour work and give the cupcakes that wonderful hue. I was also a bit more generous with the colour this time. I don’t plan to make these every day, so the colour can’t do much harm. This Martha Stewart recipe I used has just a tiny bit of cocoa for flavour, so you don’t wind up with a brown batter than refuses to turn red.
Though she recommends cake flour (regular flour with 2 tablespoons substituted with cornflour for every 1 cup of flour), I used regular flour. For the buttermilk, I used a yoghurt and milk combination. This useful blog had a couple of good substitute options.
Other than that, no major tweaks to the recipe and I was way happier with the cupcakes this time around. The texture was better, the frosting was better. It was just velvety tangy goodness 🙂
Red Velvet Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
- 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp salt if using unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg, at room temperature (see notes)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tsps red food colour (if using the liquid variety but if you're using a gel colour, you'll need about 1/2 tsp)
- 1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup whole milk mixed with 1/2 tsp lemon juice)
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp white vinegar
For the frosting
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
- 1/2 cup cream cheese, at room temp
- 1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175 C. Line 12 muffin moulds with cupcake liners or grease the moulds.
- Sift the flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the sugar and oil with a hand mixer on medium speed, until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Stir in the food colour.
- Stir in the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with the flour to stabilise the batter. If needed, run the hand mixer through the batter to break up any lumps.
- In a small bowl, stir together the baking soda and vinegar. It will foam and smell like a chemistry lab in school! Add this to the batter and beat on low speed for 10 seconds.
- Divide the batter among the muffin moulds, filling them about 3/4th of the way. Bake for 20 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through, until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool completely at room temperature.
- To make the frosting, combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat for about 2 minutes with a hand mixer, until creamy and light. If it seems too soft, place the bowl in the fridge for 15 minutes, then spread all over the cake. Feel free to add more sugar if you prefer sweeter frostings, or even double the recipe for a thick layer of frosting on each cupcake.
- Pipe or spread the frosting onto each cupcake and enjoy! Store in the fridge in an airtight tin, for about 4 to 5 days. Happy baking!
Hi!
These look totally delish!
I just want to know- what cream cheese do you use? The philadelphia stuff is so outrageously expensive in India. :/
Hi Sakina! I use Britannia Cream Cheese, I agree Philadelphia is ridiculous! Britannia is available on these online grocery places and supermarkets 🙂
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Hello The Desserted Girl! I just found your blog through Alicia Souza’s post and read a few recipes here. Loved them! As I read started reading here, I could relate so much coz I added too much red color (1 tube of 100gms in ONE cake, can you believe it!!! Kept on adding, wondering why the color is not coming as I saw in that video) in my first red velvet cake and it tasted awkwardly different… :-/ Was thankful my family helped in finishing it because the icing was bearable! I hope I make these better next time ! .
Hi Sakshi! I’m so glad you discovered the blog 🙂 I’m sure this recipe will work for you, Martha Stewart hasn’t failed me yet 🙂 Let me know how it goes!
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