Red Velvet Cupcakes

The boyfriend had two surprises for me after work two nights ago. One was coming to my workplace to walk me home; and two - ingredients for baking red velvet cupcakes! ♥ I have a feeling this was because he saw contestants on the MasterChef program bake them for one of their challenges but you know what, I'm not going complain about the lack of originality when I'm getting cupcakes to eat.

We started baking at about 12a.m. I know, so absurd. But it's never too late to bake a sweet treat, I think. Here are the pictures and recipe:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
60mL red food colouring
120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white vingear
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream cheese icing:

450g cream cheese, softened
120g unsalted butter, softened
1teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, mix food colouring and cocoa powder to form thin, smooth paste. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and the red cocoa paste, scraping down bowl frequently with a spatula. Add one third of the flour mixture into batter, beat well. Next add half of the buttermilk and beat.
6. Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of the buttermilk. End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined.
7. In a small bowl, mix vinegar and baking soda. Add it to the cake batter and stir well to combine.
8. Working quickly, divide batter evenly between cake pans (Or muffin cups) and bake at 180ºC for 25-30 minutes, or until skewer stick comes out clean.
9. Cool cupcakes before icing.
10. For the icing, blend together cream cheese and butter until smooth with electric mixer. Add in icing sugar, salt and vanilla extract and beat until light and fluffy.

I decided to be a bit stingy on the icing because I usually dislike any kind of icing on my cake. But this recipe was so good! Immediately regretted not making more for the cupcakes! The cupcakes turned out quite well, the entire batch is nearly gone now. This recipe is so simple even an amateur baker like me can do it (Granted I had help from the boy)! The only thing that I was a bit iffy about was that the recipe needed SO MUCH colouring, it was almost scary. But I'll let loose this time, only because they were yummy.