Red Velvet Cupcakes

Last weekend T'nealle and I did a stall at the Gapfiller Fair and the cupcakes I made were quite a hit! We also sold clothes, crafts and lots of other baking. Almost all the baking sold out and most of the other stuff was sold too. A very successful and fun day. Thanks Gapfiller!

(Foodblog at the Gapfiller fair)

Red velvet cakes always intrigued me so I did a little research and discovered they are from Southern USA and the red is just food colouring which seems a little pointless to me but with the cocoa they come out a beautiful maroon colour.

This recipe is an amalgamation of a few recipes I found online. I have tried it twice now so it should be pretty accurate now.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

3 cups white flour
5 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
½ tsp Salt
4 tsp Red food colouring.
1 tsp White vinegar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1½ cups Sugar
½ cup Butter or margarine
1 egg

1 cup Buttermilk

Prepare 2 muffin tins by lining them with cupcake cups or lightly greasing them

Preheat your oven to 180°C

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl.

Add food colouring, vinegar and vanilla to a seperate bowl and whisk / blend.

With an electric mixer mix together sugar and butter, then add egg, mixing well. Now mix in dry ingredients in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk mixture in 3 additions. Add a little extra buttermilk if mixture is too dry.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when skewered.

Once cool you can ice them!

Combine 1/3 c margarine and 3/4 c cream cheese with an electric beater. add icing sugar gradually using the beater to mix it in until you a thick consistency. I estimate it takes about 2 cups.

Spoon into a piping bag with a star nozle and aply to each cake in a spiral motion starting from the outside with a large dollop in the middle.

Optional- melt chocolate in a double boiler and pip into nice shapes on some baking paper using a thin line nozzle. refrigerate for 2 hours or until hard. gently ease off paper using a thin metal spatula and arrange on the icing as a nice decoration.

Enjoy!

These last about 4 days if kept in an airtight container.