Easy Red Velvet Cupcakes
A Dozen Easy Red Velvet Cupcakes
Servings 12
Cost 5
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups cake flour or 1 cup of all-purpose plus 1 Tablespoon extra flour to make the 150 grams. (150 grams)**
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, natural not Dutch (5 grams)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (150 grams)
- ¾ cup vegetable oil or use 6 T. butter and 6 T. oil
- 1 large egg room temp
- ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon red gel paste or as much as you need for a red hue
- ½ cup buttermilk (114 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vinegar
- ½ tsp baking soda
Cream Cheese Icing
- 4 oz butter, softened unsalted plus a pinch of salt
- 6 oz cream cheese, softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (use a little more if you love vanilla)
- 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice or to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Line 12 cupcake cups with paper liners.
- Sift flour, salt and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside.
- With a hand-held electric mixer or a whisk, beat the sugar, oil, egg and vanilla together for about 2 minutes or until pale and light. Beat in the red gel coloring.
- Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk to the batter alternately, stirring by hand and beginning and ending with flour.
- Mix the vinegar and baking soda together in a large cup (mixture will foam up), then stir that into the batter.
- Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners. Bake on center rack for 20 minutes or until cakes spring back when touched. Let cool and make icing.
- Beat butter and cream cheese together. Slowly add powdered sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in vanilla and lemon juice.
Notes
Flour Type: You can use cake flour or all-purpose, so long as you use 150 grams. All-purpose flour and cake flour have different weights per cup, so if you don't have a scale and need to use all-purpose, just use 1 cup plus another tablespoon of flour rather than 1 ¼ cups to equal 150 grams.
Cocoa Powder: For the cocoa powder, you need to use natural rather than Dutch process. The acidity is probably needed for proper leavening (though that's just a guess, here), but it's mostly because flavor of natural is more like traditional red velvet flavor and the color is lighter and won't muck up the red.
Buttermilk or Powder: For the buttermilk, you can use regular buttermilk or the equivalent amount of powder and water. Check the label of your powdered buttermilk because some brands differ in the ratio of powder to water. I use Bob's Red Mill which is a 3 ½ teaspoons powder to a little under 4 oz water. I add the buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients and mix the water with the liquid ingredients.
Red Gel or Liquid Color: There are many different brands and viscosities of red food coloring these days. I recommend using a gel and just squeezing in drops until the batter is a beautiful dark red. With regular grocery store type McCormick liquid color, you can get by with as little as 2 teaspoons. Using too much might make the batter too liquid, so don't keep adding it for richer red. Gel or a concentrated paste is better, but liquid is okay too.