Red Velvet Cupcakes

I know I've already posted about Red Velvet Cupcakes on this blog in the past, but I wanted to share them with you again. I can't get enough of these wonderful, soft, moist cupcakes. They're usually my go to when I need something to bake that I know will turn out well, and I often get requests to make them for various occassions. Recently my sister Andrea approached me about doing some baking for my niece, Ruby's christening. She requested these Red Velvet Cupcakes and a White Chocolate Mud cake (which I'll post about soon). I found these beautiful Robert Gordon patty pans in a cooking shop in the Melbourne CBD and just had to buy some to use for the cupcakes. Perfect for a little girl I think!

My sister had about 20-25 people coming so I wanted to aim for everyone to get at least one cupcake each. I started off making just one batch first to see how many I could get, and then made a second batch, ending up with about 30 cakes in total. I was able to stick with one batch of the cream cheese frosting mixture though, as it was enough to cover all the cupcakes.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cake flour (to make cake flour - for each cup of cake flour required replace 2 tbsp of plain flour with 2 tbsp corn flour)
2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp red gel food colouring
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp white vinegar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cake flour, cocoa and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.

3. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.

4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

5. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature before serving.

Recipe Source:
Martha Stewart website
Red Velvet Cupcakes