teen cakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes

 Ingredients

For cupcakes:

•  2 large eggs
•  1 cup buttermilk
•  1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
•  1 tsp salt
•  1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1-2 tbsp red food color
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla

For Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1/2 pound cream cheese
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions

1.  First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Next, Mix together your flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, and cocoa powder (your dry ingredients) in a medium sized bowl.
3. In a seperate large bowl, beat the oil, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla with an electric hand mixer.
4. Now, slowly add in the dry ingredient mixture to your batter. Beat until smooth and thoroughly mixed.
5. Finally, you can add your red food coloring until you acheive the deep red color you are looking for. Beat.
6. Fill your cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way. Then, place them into the oven for 20 to 22 minutes.
7. Use the toothpick test to see if you cupcakes are done. Let them cool if they are, and get started on the frosting.
8. For the cream chesse frosting, beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Take your time and wait for it to reach a nice, smooth consistency.
9. Add the sugar in, a little at a time, with the mixer on low. When all the sugar is in, switch the mixer to high and beat until light and fluffy.
10. Frost and enjoy!

Comments and Tips 

    Since this is a cake from scratch, you can expect that I had problems along the way. The first problem I encountered was the lack of butter in the cake batter. If you've seen my recent recipes, you'll know that I am a big fan of beating some butter before starting your batter. It just gives the cake a nice, velvety texture. Heavenly stuff, that butter! Although, since this was my first time making this cupcake, I swore an oath to myself that I would stick to the recipe, so no butter was in the end result. Instead was the oil. So, it kind of tasted a little better than a cake-mix cake (not that there's anything wrong with that, but...). I think it would have been over-the-top-delish if I'd added even just 1/4 cup of butter into the batter. I recommend it. If anyone tries this, please let me know how it went!

     Okay! Next bump on the road was the food coloring. This was also my first time working with food coloring - ever! I was pretty psyched! Though, when I got to the step where it said to mix the wet ingredients, the food coloring was there, too. I was like huh? You see, I had the gel type of food coloring, not the liquid type. So, it was hard to measure "2 tablespoons" of gel. SO, instead of adding it in in the beginning, I chose to add the color in after my batter was done, that way I could eye-ball how I wanted the color to look before I put it in the oven. Which, by the way, is why i changed Paula Deen's recipe from "2 tablespoons red food coloring" to "1-2 tablespoons". Basically, do what ever you have to do to get it RED!

     The last thing I want to do is praise Paula Deen for the amaZING cream cheese frosting. So simple, yet soo delicious! I must say, the frosting is what really brought this cupcake from  plain old red cupcake to RED VELVET CUPCAKE! My cupcakes would've been nothing without it!