Hannah's Red Velvet Cupcakes

So, January is cupcake month, a perfect topic to bring us out of the doom and gloom of post Christmas blues although not so great for the January diets.

Santa was very kind to me and sent me a new cookery book stand and James got me a mixer! After flicking through the Hummingbird 'Cake Days' cookery book I settled on Red Velvet Cupcakes - something i've always wanted to try and make. Throughout the making of these cupcakes, I really loved the vibrant red colour, which made making them even more enjoyable.

I firstly mixed butter and sugar and then broke the eggs in, one at a time to make a batter. In another bowl I mixed cocoa powder, vanilla essence and the whole container of red food colouring (I used Dr Oetker) in to a paste. I then incorporated this in to the batter and mixed until fully combined. I then added the flour and salt, which was added to the mixture, alternated with buttermilk. I couldn't find any buttermilk so instead used low fat plain yoghurt. Finally I mixed cider vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and added it to the batter, as per the pic below.

The mixture was then evenly distributed amongst cupcakes cases (a mixture of silicon and paper) as per below.

Whilst the cupcakes were cooling, I cracked on with the cream cheese frosting. I again used the mixer for this, which made a really light and fluffy frosting, which was made up of butter, icing sugar and cream cheese.

I covered all but one of the cupcakes with the frosting and then broke up the remaining cupcake over the others. I chose to cover them using a palette knife rather than a piping bag, however I think it's obvious I need some practice!

As the cakes cooked, they lost quite a bit of their vibrant colour and looked mostly brown, so maybe next time I should use even more food colouring. The cakes tasted nice and I even took some in to work, which seemed to go down well. I found the cakes quite sweet and they have their own taste which can't really be compared, apart from maybe toffee-ish. All in all, I would make these again, as would be a good recipe to have up your sleeve for birthdays and celebrations.