A Cupcake Recipe

Red Velvet Cupcakes

We love cupcakes at Little Bo's and so we have a range of the cupcake related jewellery. We also tried making Red Velvet Cupcakes and this is the recipe. This makes about 12 -16 large cupcakes or 18 - 24 small cupcakes

Cake Ingredients
150g of butter
200g of sugar
300g of plain flour
25g of corn flour
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
3 large eggs
250ml buttermilk (or 240ml milk plus 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and leave for 5 minutes before using if you can't obtain buttermilk)
1 tablespoon of red food colouring (this gives the cake a deep red colour - but you can use less if you prefer)
Pinch of salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C /350F (Gas Mark 4) and prepare the cupcake pans with paper cases
Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until pale and fluffy.
Add the eggs one by one and beat vigorously and then add the vanilla extract.
Mix the the buttermilk and red food colouring together.
Sieve the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into another bowl.
Add a third of the flour into the butter - sugar mixture with a third of the buttermilk mixture and mix together. Go easy on the mixer if you are using an electric mixer as a high speed will result in a very messy kitchen!
Repeat this with the remaining flour and the buttermilk until all the ingredients have combined. Take care not to over mix or the cakes will be too glutenous
Working quickly, spoon the the mixture into the cupcake pans, filling the pans two thirds full.
Bake the cakes for between 15-20 minutes (depending on the size of the cupcakes you are making).
The cakes are cooked when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool on a wire baking rack before making the icing.

Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients
200g cream cheese
100g butter
500g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Beat the cream cheese and butter together.
Sift the icing sugar into the mixture, add the vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
Spread the mixture over the cupcakes and decorate to your heart's content. A personal favourite is to decorate with a sprinkle of chocolate vermicelli or hundreds and thousands!