- Hey, bakers!
Today, we're making one of my favorite treats ever!
Red velvet cupcakes.
They are so tender, fluffy, moist, and dreamy.
Your eyes will just pop out of your head like,
"What is this?!
"This is so delicious!"
(laughing)
Maybe not, but they're really good!
And, they're topped with this cloud of cream cheese frosting
that's perfectly tangy, just sweet,
and so easy to make!
Let's get started!
I'm sifting all of the dry ingredients,
starting off with one and two-thirds cups
or 213 grams of all-purpose flour
into the bowl of my standing mixer.
213.
213
grams
of flour.
Okay.
That was easy.
One quarter teaspoon of baking soda
and a full teaspoon of baking powder.
A quarter teaspoon of kosher salt.
And because this is a red velvet,
there will be two teaspoons of cocoa powder.
A red velvet cake is actually the cocoa powder you use
reacting with the buttermilk.
It creates this pink color.
It's, like, very dusty chocolate pink.
That's not the case anymore.
Most people don't wanna see that.
Some people don't even want to put any cocoa powder
in their cake, but for me,
I feel like it needs it.
Sift, sift, sift, sift.
And because this is a cake,
let's not forget one full cup or 200 grams of sugar.
I forget the sugar so often.
Okay.
Now, let's whisk it together.
(clanging)
I'm done with my scale.
I'm gonna put this aside for a moment.
(cheerful music)
Now, for the wet ingredients.
Three whole eggs.
One, two, and three.
Room temperature if you can, please.
Three quarters of a cup of buttermilk.
If you don't have buttermilk at home that's fine.
Use regular whole milk and add, like,
a little bit less than a tablespoon of white vinegar
or even lemon juice.
Set it aside, let it curdle.
It'll have a similar buttermilk-y taste and feel.
The buttermilk has more acid in it,
and it will react with the sodium bicarbonate
and make things a little puffier.
Okay, let's whisk this together first
just to get this going.
A couple tablespoons of vanilla extract.
And now, for the red food coloring.
I am in America.
I will be using some super red AmeriColor food gel paste.
Will one drop work?
No, two?
Three?
Let's see.
There we go.
A nice realistic looking (laughing) red color.
Perfect!
Now, back to the dry mixture.
And let's get to reverse creaming.
So, right now I have three quarters of a cup
or about 190 grams
of unsalted butter at room temperature,
and you want this to be yielding to the touch
but not melt-y if that makes sense.
Just cut it into, like, kinda tablespoon size dollops.
You can actually just use your fingers.
And, just distribute them in
that fluffy, cloudy, chocolatey mixture.
You don't want one giant clump
of butter going into the mixture
'cause it'll just take longer to break apart.
Fingers are getting very moisturized!
This definitely reminds me of making pastry,
but the end result is so different!
Now that our butter is in there,
we're going to mix this on low,
and you're gonna end up with,
like, a crummy, crumbly mixture.
On low, just let it mix.
It'll work itself out.
(mixer whirring)
You can increase the speed to, like, medium low
after a few seconds.
And the butter is getting all broken up right now,
tinier and tinier pieces.
You're gonna end up with, like, a sandy,
like a wet sandy mixture almost.
All that flour is getting coated
with the fat from the butter.
That's gonna prevent it from being really bread-y and tough.
It's gonna keep it nice and tender.
All right, let's take a look.
I'm gonna show you what this is like.
Look at this mixture.
It smells so good!
And you can see, it's like wet sand almost.
Back to our wet mixture,
we're gonna add in about half of it,
let it mix for a minute and half, maybe two minutes,
and it's gonna get nice and smooth.
Don't add it all in at once
because it's not going to mix up properly.
(mixer whirring)
Mix it on medium, walk away,
take a phone call,
do your nails, whatever.
No one can do their nails in a minute and a half.
I was wrong.
(mixer whirring)
Okay, let's take a look.
This looks really great.
It's fluffed up a lot.
It's nice and airy.
However, I don't know.
Even with that food coloring in,
I'm not sure it's gonna be the right color.
So, we might have to add a little bit more.
Just warning you ahead of time.
Okay, now let's add in half of the half
or a quarter of the wet mixture.
So, another half.
And then, mix that for, like, 30 seconds.
On low!
On low.
(mixer whirring)
Now, to medium.
All right, the rest of the mixture in.
(mixer whirring)
Don't be afraid to scrape that bowl down.
I will be adding more food coloring in.
Don't judge me.
This is optional!
(mixer whirring)
All right, I am satisfied with that color,
and let's get this into our cupcake papers right now!
I'm using an ice cream scoop
just to plop this batter into my prepared pan.
Let's bake it at 350 for maybe 15 to 20 minutes.
Keep an eye on it,
kinda depends on how hot your oven is.
You could also switch this around half way through,
so that you get a nice even bake
and nothing is, y'know, a little bit burnt in the back.
Keep an eye on it.
While those cupcakes are in the oven,
let's whip up a giant batch of cream cheese frosting!
It's one of my favorite things to eat
and it is delicious!
First off, we're gonna sift a pound and a half
of confectioner's sugar.
You don't have to sift the sugar,
but it's a good practice to have.
So, let's sift it out, and using a scale helps.
You don't have to sift it all at once though.
You can do it in batches.
So, sift, sift, sift.
It's also good to get the lumps out ahead of time
because if you're gonna try and mix and mix and mix,
cheese-based frosting is like mascarpone frosting,
and cream cheese frosting can,
theoretically, be over whipped,
more for mascarpone frosting,
which is delicious.
But, you don't wanna over whip things.
Cloudy with a chance of sugar.
Now, we're gonna set this sugar aside,
come back to it in a few minutes.
Put your scale away, too.
And, we're gonna cream our butter.
Three sticks into the bowl of your stand mixer.
This makes a big batch,
so don't see all the butter and panic.
So, let's add that on there.
Cream it up.
(mixer whirring)
All right, so my butter is nice and creamy.
Room temperature butter should yield to the touch.
When you press down it shouldn't be hard,
but it shouldn't be melt-y either.
It's in between.
Nice pinch of salt.
And we're gonna add in 16 ounces of cream cheese!
If you don't have cream cheese,
I question why you're watching this video,
but you could also use Neufchatel cheese
which is very similar,
or you can use mascarpone as well.
It's like a cross between cream cheese
and heavy whipping cream.
I would almost describe it as, like, cream made solid.
I'm gonna cream this up now.
Mix it with that butter well.
(mixer whirring)
And, I'm gonna add in a teaspoon of vanilla,
always a nice idea.
(laughing)
And, why do I put away an empty bottle of vanilla?
'Kay, this one's empty too.
And, I'm gonna open a giant new vanilla.
This is Nielsen-Massey.
It's a very good brand.
There are many good brands though, so...
If you're getting Rodelle, that's nice too.
Just go for the real stuff.
One teaspoon of vanilla, please.
There we go.
Thank you!
(mixer whirring)
Cream it up, let it get well combined.
And, y'know, scrape that bowl down too.
This tastes delicious already, and...
I'm not above eating it.
Why is cream cheese so good?
All right, that's all mixed up.
And, I'm just gonna add in, like, a cup or so of sugar
at a time and let it incorporate.
You know what?
Okay.
(mixer whirring)
Once that's incorporated, add the rest or another batch.
(mixer whirring)
Look at this!
Let's just take a taste.
You might notice though that it's very, like, it's runny.
It's a runny mixture,
so we have to add a little bit more sugar in to firm it up.
And, we're gonna mix it in.
(upbeat music)
Okay, let's check this out.
Fresh spoon.
A little bit wider,
and you can see it's holding a peak more,
so this is much more pipe-able.
That extra sugar made a big difference.
Oh my God!
I might add in a little blessing of salt.
(mixer whirring)
Call that a day.
That's delicious.
My red velvet cupcakes are outta the oven
and just cool enough to touch.
They're still warm.
I want to talk to you about the color.
Look at this!
This is a red velvet cupcake.
If you wanted to have...
they smell really good, oh my gosh!
If you wanted to have more of a chocolatey flavor
just add in, like, a tablespoon of cocoa powder
or, y'know, whatever you want.
You could add in one tablespoon of cocoa powder,
even two tablespoons of cocoa powder!
And, you can dial down the red for sure.
This is one I made yesterday,
and I used more cocoa powder
and less red food coloring in it.
Still looks, to me, this looks reddish,
but I feel for the sake of photography,
we're gonna go with the more food coloring one.
You also wanna have, like, one cupcake,
and you can really load up on the red food coloring
if you want for that one cupcake
just stir it directly into the cupcake batter.
We're gonna use a cheese grater and grate this out
so that we have nice crumbs to sprinkle around.
Those crumbs will give us a little bit
of extra fun visual cues saying,
"Hey, this is a red velvet cupcake!
"Eat me, I'm delicious!"
Anyways, we have some crumbs.
We're gonna use these at the very end.
Setting them aside.
I baked these cupcakes in plain old white cupcake wrappers.
They're actually my favorite.
Don't tell anybody.
I like that you can see the color through.
But, I think they'll look extra cute
in decorative cupcake papers like these.
You can bake your cupcakes in these papers,
but they become a little bit discolored.
Not necessarily from the butter
because they're lined with some, like, wax stuff,
but from the baking.
It heats them up and makes them a bit yellow.
So, my solution is just to pop 'em right in!
There we go.
I have my cream cheese frosting
in a piping bag fitted with an 869 tip,
an open star, my favorite tip in the world.
And, we're just gonna give it a nice swoopy dollop.
So, apply pressure, squeeze, turn, and lift gently.
There we go!
Whoa!
That's what I call a spire!
So, we have a beautiful cupcake over here.
All we need now are some crumbs
to sprinkle it on top.
What cupcake could this be, I wonder?
A red velvet cupcake, that's what!
This is so simple to make.
I've been snacking as you saw, and it's delicious,
but I will take a formal bite in just a moment.
Let's make a few more.
(cheerful music)
It is now time for me to eat the sacrificial cupcake!
(laughing)
I don't know if you can see this,
but it's so moist.
Look at this.
I feel like I shouldn't be touching this cupcake
in this way, but (laughing) it's really soft!
Really nice.
Should I eat this in the traditional cupcake manner?
Yes!
(laughing)
If you wanna make a giant version of this,
check out my red velvet cake video.
And if you want the perfect vanilla cupcake,
so moist, so wonderful, click down here for my
"How to Make the Perfect Vanilla Cupcake" video.
It will change your vanilla cupcake life.
All right, if you have any questions leave 'em
in the comments below.
Thank you so much for watching!
And, of course, if you like my videos
hit that like button and subscribe!
Bon appetit!