Buttercream-Frosted Red Velvet Cupcakes

It's a Saturday night and I was bored haha. I am definitely getting old as previously my weekends would be spent partying, clubbing, drinking or what not. Now, it's baking haha. But seriously, cooking is my therapy. It takes my mind off whatever worries I have at the moment (not that I have any major ones right now, luckily).

I just really want to practice my piping to be honest. I was rummaging through our cupboard and saw this 1-year-old-expired box of ready-to-bake fudge brownies and was thinking it could do for cupcakes until I opened the box and saw mold inside the packaging hehehe, oops.

So anyway, thanks to Betty Crocker cookbook app in iPhone I was able to find a recipe for red velvet cupcakes. Luckily, I had most of the ingredients available, aside from the buttermilk (in which case, I used diluted evaporated milk as we ran out of any form of milk hahaha). My first attempt to bake red velvet cupcakes were a year ago, which you can read here.

You can find the Betty Crocker recipe here, or below:

2 1/4	cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/4	cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1	teaspoon salt
1/2	cup butter or margarine, softened
1 1/2	cups granulated sugar
2	eggs
1	bottle (1 oz) red food color (about 2 tablespoons)
1 1/2	teaspoons vanilla
1	cup buttermilk
1	teaspoon baking soda
1	tablespoon white vinegar

The step-by-step procedure you can also find in the link I posted above :-) I actually used half of the recipe as I didn't want 24 cupcakes as there are only 3 of us here in our place and I do most of the eating hehehe.

I prepared the frosting ahead of time and set it aside in the fridge to cool.

I don't have proper cupcake pans actually as I prefer using cupcake holders then inserting the liners inside, so this way I can bake more cupcakes on a tray. We are just renting so I try to minimize on purchasing so much stuff as it's a big hassle when moving to a new place.

This is how it looks like after mixing in the colouring and vanilla...

And this is how it looks like after mixing in the milk, vinegar and dry ingredients... it was kinda freaky how the batter sizzled after I put in the vinegar, some chemical reaction perhaps. I read somewhere that the vinegar helps to lift the cake...

I chose pink, blue and yellow since these are the only food colouring I have anyway :-)

The recipe yielded exactly 12 cupcakes. 

I love how I finally got the right height of the cupcakes after baking.

Again, thanks to my cousin Aileen for this set of icing tips.

The first time I ever tried piping I got too excited I put the buttercream in the piping bags before cutting the ends and putting in the tips haha.

Taaddaaa!! There you go! I got carried away with the piping so it looks a bit messy hehe. I was hoping to make use of all the buttercream as the recipe I made was meant for 24 cupcakes, I think. Anyway, I read somewhere that you can store them for up to 2 months if kept in tightly-sealed containers.

Till the next cupcake adventure!! :-)