Little Red Velvet Cakes – Recipe

I found some awesome cupcake boxes that can hold cupcakes in place upside-down without damaging the frosting! Unfortunately, they can only hold dinky fairy cake-sized morsels. Fairy cake-sized morsels, however, are just the right size for transporting across London for an evening of tabletop gaming at a friend's.


These look quite dark in this photo, yes- partially because of weird lighting, but also because I always add a little more cocoa powder to my red velvet than most. After all, the original red velvet's colour was caused by the chemical reaction between cocoa powder and vinegar, while these days less cocoa is used and more red food colouring is added instead. I still added some food colouring though, giving this red velvet cake a more mysteriously dark red hue, along with a more chocolatey bite.

You can see how these smaller cases fit in a regular muffin tin- they're smaller than 'regular' cupcakes, but not as small as mini ones. They'd be pretty good for children's parties, and they're cute in general for tea parties. I think cupcakes these days can get way too big anyway (not that you'd hear me complain if you plonked on in front of me right now...)


The recipe for the cake batter is super easy, with no creaming ingredients separately: just put everything together in a bowl, whisk, and you're done. The cream cheese frosting requires just a little more love to ensure a good piping consistency (over beating cream cheese releases the water in it and can make it runny), but I'll walk you through that.

Let's go!


(Makes 20 fairy cakes or 12 regular cupcakes)

Ingredients for Cupcakes:

-150g self raising flour
-30g cocoa powder
-150g caster sugar
-5tbsp buttermilk
-5tbsp vegetable oil
-4tbsp milk
-1 egg
-1tsp vanilla
-pinch of salt

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting:

100g full fat cream cheese
30g unsalted butter, softened
150g icing sugar

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and pop your cupcake cases into the tins (you don't have to use tins, but they do help the cakes keep their shape as they bake)

2) Sift all the dry ingredients into a big bowl, add in the wet ingredients, and whizz with an electric whisk until smooth


3) Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases, making sure they don't fill more than 2/3 to 3/4 of the cases


4) Bake for 10-15 minutes (give one a gentle poke at 10 minutes- if it springs back, it's done: these cakes are small so they don't take long to bake)


5) Leave to cool completely while you make the frosting (I brushed them with a little syrup made from boiling equal parts water and sugar for a few minutes- this helps to keep them from drying out)

6) To make the frosting, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Now stir the cream cheese in carefully until literally just combined, and pop your frosting in the fridge while the cakes cool

7) When the cupcakes are completely cold, spoon, spread or pipe the frosting on however you like, add you favourite sprinkles, and enjoy!


These 'postable' cake boxes come with domed tops- so if you like your icing tall, your cakes won't get smooshed. Great idea!


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