Red Velvet Cupcake

Giant Velveteen Cake!

For my friend's 21st I decided to try something special for her present and bake her a giant yummy cupcake! 

I got an amazing giant cupcake mould from my mum for Christmas which I've been looking forward to using for weeks. And for my birthday last year, my flatmate Mel put together a cute goodie-box of cupcake treats along with her Red Velvet Cupcake recipe so I thought I'd share it! ❤

It's an American recipe, so the measurements are in cups but 1 Cup= 240ml. Also, bear in mind, if you decide to use more than 1oz of red food colouring, you can start to taste the colouring in the sponge.

❤ Melody's Red Velvet Cupcakes ❤

- 2 1/2 cups of flour (self raising or plain)

- 1/2 cups of unsweetened cocoa

- 1 tsp of baking soda (only needed if you used plain flour)

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1 cup of butter (softened)

- 2 cups of sugar

- 4 eggs

- 1 cup of sour cream

- 1/2 cup of milk

- 2 tsp vanilla

- 1 oz of read food colouring (1.5-2 oz for bright red sponge)

1) Preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix the flour, cocoa, (baking soda) and salt. Set aside.

2) Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the sour cream, milk, food colour and vanilla, and slowly beat in the flour mixture. 

3) Spoon into molds- cupcakes, baking tin, whatever you choose!

4) Take care to know your oven for cooking times. for cupcakes, 20-25 mins should be fine but check every ten minutes after this time if you are baking the sponge in trays or molds. When they are ready, a cocktail stick should come out clean- enjoy!

As the mold I have is silicone, I was advised to buy some cake release to stop the sponge from sticking, so I ended up with a bottle of Cake Release from Lakeland  (which you can buy here Cake Release) 


Actually, I don't know the oven in my flat well at all so to be honest my sponge turned out as a bit of a mess. It didn't come out of the mold as easily as I had expected and was more cooked on the outside than in the centre so I had to salvage it with the decorations!

Sweet as sugar roses!

Decorations

For the top of the cupcake I piped a butter icing using a 15mm Rosette nozzle and a little icing bag. I set a little of the butter icing aside and coloured it with some pink food colouring to make the little pink swirls around the back of the cake- which I did to cover up the imperfections in my swirl of white icing! 

Here is my butter icing recipe:

❤ Buttercream Icing ❤

- 3 cups of icing sugar/confectioner's sugar

- 4 oz butter (works best if it is still quite stiff as it warms when mixing)

- 4 tbsp of milk

- 1 tsp vanilla

- A couple of drops of food colouring if you fancy

1) Mix altogether using an electric whisk! Easy peasy. 

❤ The roses and the pink swirly base ❤

For these I used  Dr Oetker white fondant and simply kneaded in my hands until it was soft enough to play with. I had some pink paste colouring so added a bit of this and realized I could create some really pretty swirls through the icing. Then I rolled it out into a thin sheet and pressed it around the base of the cake, pushing into the indents so it still looked like the bottom of a cupcake. 

Sorry, I was silly and forgot to take pictures of how I managed the roses so here's a great link which explains how to make them, and also shows how I mixed the paste colouring! how-to-make-fondant-roses

I'd love to hear if you've tried the recipe and how it worked out! Enjoy! 

Emma x