Red Velvet Cupcakes

I know it's been a while since I posted but a combination of lack of inspiration and a bust electric whisk have put me off for a while but I now have a shiney new mixer to play with and seem to be getting my baking urge back!

We recently had yet another school holiday and during the half term BabyBear and I made the journey up to Cheshire to visit our Northern family.  It had been my younger sisters birthday a few weeks earlier and as a late birthday cake she requested that I make her red velvet cupcakes.

I've had limited success with red velvet cakes before - I tried them once and while they tasted Ok I was distinctly underwhelmed - they turned out brown rather than the vivid RED! that they appear to be in pictures.  So I did what any one would do and hit the internet to find out exactly where I went wrong.  It turned out that the food colouring that you can buy in most supermarkets is unsuitable for red velvet cakes.  The Hummingbird Bakery cook book specifically says to use Dr Oetkar red but since that was published the EU guide lines on food colouring have changed.  Rather than the incredibly artificial colours that you used to be able to get most supermarkets stock 'natural' colours which just aren't strong enough.

I was knew that the best thing to do was use a gel rather than a liquid colouring but was unsure which one to go for (there are a bewildering amount of colours available) when I saw a tweet from Lorraine Pascale recommending Sugar Flair's Red Extra (available here from Amazon)

The first recipe I tried was from The Hummingbird Bakery's book and while I was happy with the results it didn't taste very chocolatey.  The recipe called for 40ml of food colouring.  Instead I used 1 teaspoon of gel and made it up to 40ml with extra water.  If you have a particular red velvet recipe that you prefer then this technique should work.

the next recipe I tried was from Ed Kimbers book.  This one was much more to my taste - it used more cocoa powder so actually tasted like a chocolate cake.  It was incredibly moist and went beautifully with the cream cheese icing.  I've now a red velvet convert and am very tempted to see if the same technique can be used to make diffent coloured cakes (I'm particularly tempted to make a pink velvet cake)

The Ed Kimber recipe was actually for a 3 layer cake but as I was making cupcakes I decided to reduce this by a third.  This made way too much mix and we've been in the unfortunate situation of having too much cake! (a terrible situation to be in I know) The mix made 12 large cupcakes, 8 bite size ones that BabyBear has been taking to school with him in his lunch box and a loaf tin sized cake that I've frozen to make cake pops with in the future!

Red Velvet Cakes - makes a 2 layer cake or 24 cupcakes (ish) - from Ed Kimber's The Boy Who Bakes

150g softened butter
235g caster sugar
1 tsp red food gel
2tb boiling water
30g cocoa powder
160ml buttermilk
2 eggs
235g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1/2 tbsp white vinegar


1 Pre-heat the oven to 170C and line your tins with cupcake cases or grease your cake tin.

2 In a jug mix together the boiling water, cocoa power, buttermilk and food colouring.  Mix until thoroughly incorporated.

3 Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  In another bowl mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.  Add 1/3 of the flour mix and half the buttermilk mix to the creamed butter and sugar and mix thoroughly.  Repeat until all the mix is added.  Finally add the vinegar.

4 Spoon into your prepared tins/cupcake cases and bake for 20 minutes.  Allow to cool before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

160g unsalted butter, softened
330g icing sugar
260g cream cheese (not low fat, it goes really runny)

1 Beat the butter to soften it then add the icing sugar and beat until smooth.  Add the cream cheese and beat until light and fluffy.  I find that putting the icing in the fridge for a little while before using makes icing the cakes a lot easier.

Iron Man inspired billionaire's shortbread cupcakes

Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?

Tony Stark: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

(The Avengers, 2012)

Today sees the return of Iron Man to our screens and I've been inspired to bake!  Now what could be more perfect for everyones favourite genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist than millionaires shortbread inspired cupcakes?  

To make these just that little bit special I'm playing around with the usual millionaires shortbread layers of shortbread, caramel and chocolate and reversing them - I've baked a rich chocolate cupcake, filled it a with sticky salted caramel centre and topped with vanilla butter cream liberally studied with pieces of shortbread.  There's quite a few elements to these cakes so it's a recipe to do when you've plenty of time!

Billionaires Shortbread Cupcakes

The cupcake (recipe taken from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days available here)

80g softened, unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
400g plain flour
40g cocoa
pinch of salt
1 tbsp baking powder
2 eggs
240ml milk


1) Cream together the butter, sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.  
2) In a jug lightly whisk together the eggs and the milk then add 2/3's to the dry mix.  Once incorporated add the rest.
3) Put into cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 15-20 minutes.


Salted Caramel Sauce

150g caster sugar
120ml double cream
1tsp salt

1) In a non-stick pan gently heat the sugar until melted.  You need to keep an eye on it as it can easily burn and become quite bitter.  You need to be a bit careful when melting sugar as it gets incredibly hot and personally it's not something I do while Babybear is about as I wouldn't like to leave it alone too long if he needs my attention.


2) Once the sugar has all melted and gone a golden colour add the cream.  I find that if I take the cream out of the fridge about 15 minutes before I start the sauce it doesn't spit as much.  Give the stir a sauce to make sure that the cream is all incorporated.


3) Start adding the salt; it's best to do this in small amounts as it's easier to add more than it is to take away too much.  You can test how the caramel tastes by dropping a small amount in cold water and then tasting it.


4) When it's ready take off the heat and set to one side.  (Top Tip - Fill the sauce pan with very hot water immediately after using the sauce, this will make it far easier to clean.  If you do find yourself with a pan with bits of rock hard caramel caramel stuck to it just pour in very hot water and bring to the boil; the caramel will dissolve in the water making it far easier to clean)


Shortbread

60g caster sugar

110g soft, unsalted butter

110g plain flour

1) Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the plain flour and mix until it forms a dough - I find it easiest to use my hands here.
2) As it doesn't need to be any particular shape I didn't bother rolling it out, just put it on a baking tray and flattened it with my hand.
3) Place in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 15 minutes.


Butter cream

250g Icing sugar
80g Butter
25ml Milk

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until light and fluffy.


Assembling the cakes


1) Once the cupcakes are cooled you need to slice the top off and scoop out some of the inside to create a hole for the caramel sauce to go in. (The tops aren't needed again so go ahead and eat them!)

2) Put a teaspoon of the caramel sauce into each cupcake.

3) While the shortbread is still slightly warm cut half of it into 1.5cm X 1.5 (ish) squares.  These will go on top of your cupcakes.  Crumble the rest into smallish pieces and gently fold into the butter cream.

4) Spoon the butter cream on the cupcakes and make them pretty! (This is the bit I normally struggle with)  Top each with a piece of shortbread and enjoy!

So have any of you been to see Iron Man 3 yet?  What did you think of it?