Delicious chaos
Well it may or may not be true that the universe tends to disorder, but I have found that the law of the kitchen is: the cleaner the kitchen, the more I want to bake something and mess it up.
My mother has a lady who comes in once a week to clean. The past few years she’s come on Wednesday, but now she comes on Thursday. And for some reason baking day has changed from Wednesday to Thursday. I can only attribute it to the fact that when I come home and see that beautiful, clean kitchen, I feel that I must do something to mess it up again as soon as possible.
I love cupcakes but I rarely make them since they are more difficult to transport than cookies and also not something I’m likely to make for just myself when I’m at school. Fortunately, I have three other people to foist the calories off on right now. ^__^
So last Thursday, I saw a beautiful picture of a red velvet cupcake on one of my blogs. I love red velvet cake. I also know my brother reeeally loves red velvet cake. As soon as I saw that clean kitchen, I knew that I had to make some cupcakes. ^__~
The recipe calls for two tablespoons of red food coloring. The little tubes you buy at the grocery store don’t even come close to that. And it’s not the season where my grocery store stocks the larger bottles of green or red food coloring either. Not to mention that it was already 8 pm and I wasn’t going out again anyways. I opened the cupboard to find that I had enough left for about one drop of red food coloring. However, I also had a full squeezy bottle (that’s a technical term) of pink food coloring, which I figured would be better than making blue or green velvet cupcakes (though there’s a thought for Halloween). I only put a teaspoon+ of food coloring, but it was enough to at least give the cake a nice pink color. The cake itself turned out perfect - good taste and texture, even with substituting milk w/vinegar for the buttermilk.
They went so fast I didn’t even have time to really photograph them (or frost some of them!) Notice how many are missing already!
Red (Pink) Velvet Cupcakes
http://spicyicecream.blogspot.com/2008/08/certainly-striking.html
Recipe adapted from Paula Deen
Makes 20-24
• 2 ½ cups plain flour
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons red food colouring
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting
• 250g cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line one or two 12-hole cupcake trays with paper liners.
2. Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa into a large bowl and whisk to combine.
3. In another bowl, mix the oil, buttermilk, eggs, red colouring, vinegar and vanilla extract on medium to low speed.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until smooth and well combined.
5. Fill the cupcake liners with batter, until about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes, turning the pans once at about the halfway mark. Cupcakes are done when a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
7. To make cream cheese icing, combine cream cheese, sifted icing sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix until smooth and creamy. Smooth onto cooled cakes.
For the cream cheese frosting make sure to use full-fat cream cheese (well reduced fat might work, I’ve never tried. DON’T use fat free cream cheese, because your frosty will be a watery mess that doesn’t taste vaguely like cream cheese. As befits a Paula Deen recipe anyways. ^_~
The recipe also has a serious amount of oil - next time I might try to substitute applesauce or something for a bit of the oil. But the cake turned out so perfectly I hesitate to change anything!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I read a news story once where some thieves broke in through the ceiling of a bakery to steal ONLY the red velvet cupcakes. They left everything else. Yeah. They’re that good. ^_^’’’
My mother has a lady who comes in once a week to clean. The past few years she’s come on Wednesday, but now she comes on Thursday. And for some reason baking day has changed from Wednesday to Thursday. I can only attribute it to the fact that when I come home and see that beautiful, clean kitchen, I feel that I must do something to mess it up again as soon as possible.
I love cupcakes but I rarely make them since they are more difficult to transport than cookies and also not something I’m likely to make for just myself when I’m at school. Fortunately, I have three other people to foist the calories off on right now. ^__^
So last Thursday, I saw a beautiful picture of a red velvet cupcake on one of my blogs. I love red velvet cake. I also know my brother reeeally loves red velvet cake. As soon as I saw that clean kitchen, I knew that I had to make some cupcakes. ^__~
The recipe calls for two tablespoons of red food coloring. The little tubes you buy at the grocery store don’t even come close to that. And it’s not the season where my grocery store stocks the larger bottles of green or red food coloring either. Not to mention that it was already 8 pm and I wasn’t going out again anyways. I opened the cupboard to find that I had enough left for about one drop of red food coloring. However, I also had a full squeezy bottle (that’s a technical term) of pink food coloring, which I figured would be better than making blue or green velvet cupcakes (though there’s a thought for Halloween). I only put a teaspoon+ of food coloring, but it was enough to at least give the cake a nice pink color. The cake itself turned out perfect - good taste and texture, even with substituting milk w/vinegar for the buttermilk.
They went so fast I didn’t even have time to really photograph them (or frost some of them!) Notice how many are missing already!
Red (Pink) Velvet Cupcakes
http://spicyicecream.blogspot.com/2008/08/certainly-striking.html
Recipe adapted from Paula Deen
Makes 20-24
• 2 ½ cups plain flour
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons red food colouring
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting
• 250g cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line one or two 12-hole cupcake trays with paper liners.
2. Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa into a large bowl and whisk to combine.
3. In another bowl, mix the oil, buttermilk, eggs, red colouring, vinegar and vanilla extract on medium to low speed.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until smooth and well combined.
5. Fill the cupcake liners with batter, until about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes, turning the pans once at about the halfway mark. Cupcakes are done when a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
7. To make cream cheese icing, combine cream cheese, sifted icing sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix until smooth and creamy. Smooth onto cooled cakes.
For the cream cheese frosting make sure to use full-fat cream cheese (well reduced fat might work, I’ve never tried. DON’T use fat free cream cheese, because your frosty will be a watery mess that doesn’t taste vaguely like cream cheese. As befits a Paula Deen recipe anyways. ^_~
The recipe also has a serious amount of oil - next time I might try to substitute applesauce or something for a bit of the oil. But the cake turned out so perfectly I hesitate to change anything!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I read a news story once where some thieves broke in through the ceiling of a bakery to steal ONLY the red velvet cupcakes. They left everything else. Yeah. They’re that good. ^_^’’’