Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Last Sunday was Mother's Day and of course although not necessary, almost every child does something to put a smile on their mother's face. Usually, here at home we'd make some bed in breakfast but this year, we decided to make Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese topping to put a smile on the faces of mothers around us (: This was a recipe we got from the newspaper and our first try. 

It wasn't too much work but of course, with baking comes a little work and sweat! Even so, baking is always worth it once you have a sniff of the heavenly aroma in the air and puts a smile on someone's face. So who cares if the sugar and the creamy cheese topping makes you a little chubby? 

 Red colouring! Heard you could use beetroot to colour it as well. A much healthier alternative but I don't know how the beetroot would affect the taste though. Worth a try the next round!

 Silky red batter ready for baking.

 Cream cheese. I absolutely love cream cheese even if it makes me fat! Couldn't stop myself from eating even just plain cream cheese. Actually, I tend to dip my fingers in almost everything when I bake.Especially the batter! I'm a total rat when baking!

 Add some butter, icing sugar and vanilla. I find it much easier mixing it by hand rather than using a mixer when the cream cheese is cold. Using the mixer just sent chunks of cream cheese flying around like comets.

After about fifteen minutes or so, the smell of cupcakes fill the air and these babies are ready to come out of that oven!

 Just moist enough in the middle, perfect.

 Piping bag, or well just cut a hole at the end of your plastic bag.

 

 Put some cream cheese in a separate bag and add some colouring to decorate!

 Some cupcakes for our late grandfather (:

 Voila!Simple cupcakes, just sweet enough to put a smile on anyone's face!

Give some love to your tummy and bake yourself some red velvet cupcakes! (:

Recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes (a tad bit modified since it was a cake recipe)

Ingredients:

165g + 1 tbsp cake flour (we used self-raising flour)

3/4 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

85g of unsalted butter (we used salted butter so skip the salt!)

1/2 tsp salt (Remember to skip if you used salted butter!)

225g white sugar (we used 200g cause our father's a diabetic)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp red food colouring (I find that the colouring was a tad too much so we used 1 1/2 tablespoons instead, BUT I think you should cut it down to only a tablespoon cause the cupcakes tasted a little bitter)

175ml of buttermilk (If you don't have it, use 170 ml of milk and 1 tbsp of lemon juice and leave for 5 minutes)

3/4 tsp of white vinegar (we used apple cider vinegar)

3/4 tsp of baking soda

Instructions: 

1. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt (if needed) into a medium-sized bowl and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together for about 5-7 minutes or just until it's light and fluffy. 

3. Beat the eggs in one at a time then mix the vanilla and red colouring into the batter.

4. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.

5. Then half the buttermilk. Another 1/3 of the flour mixture followed by the remaining buttermilk.

6. Mix the remaining flour till combined well.

7. In a small bowl, mix the vinegar and baking soda. Then fold the mixture into the cake batter.

8. Fill the cupcake cups half way so that the batter doesn't over-flow.

9. Bake for about 15 minutes at a pre-heated 170 degree Celsius oven. Or until a skewer or toothpick comes out clean! 

10. Cool your cupcakes before frosting them or your the cheese will melt!

Recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

About 400g of cream cheese frosting (I guess you don't have to be so precise, we estimated :p )

115g unsalted butter (we used salted butter, so skip the salt)

A pinch of salt

220 g of powdered sugar, sifted (We added a little bit by bit and tasted along the way so that we don't have too sweet of a frosting)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Just mix all the ingredients well for the frosting. We recommend to not use a mixer cause it just gets stuck in the middle part of the whisk. So we used a fork (:

2. To pipe the frosting, put it into a plastic bag and cut the tip off. If you have a piping bag then use the piping bag (:

Oh and we got this recipe from The Star Newspaper (: 

❤