What can I say about Red Velvet Cupcakes, other than YUM!!!!  Ok, aside from the cream cheese frosting (which I have already expressed my obsession with on other posts) – the cake is just so moist and delicious, I could just go on and on.  These are definitely on the short list of my all time favorite treats.

Last year for the dessert frenzy at an auction, I made my first (in many years) red velvet cake.  I was worried that it wouldn’t be fancy enough, so I decorated it with berries, and piped the frosting in a nice design – and it was a huge hit.  The table that selected it just happened to sit right next to our table, and they devoured it.  Fortunately I was able to secure a small sliver just to try it.   There was only one problem – I didn’t have enough food coloring, so the cake was a mild chocolate pink.  It never got that really deep dark red color.  I apologized to the table, but they didn’t care – in fact, they liked that they weren’t ingesting huge amounts of red dye into their bodies.  Recently I saw this recipe in Cooking Light – and of course because it was red velvet, I had to try it.  Instead of the 2 sticks of butter I used last year for the cake, I used 6 tablespoons for the 24 cupcakes (I only have 2 cupcake pans, so I made mine extra-large) – and let me tell you, I could not taste the difference.  These cupcakes were fabulous – and the icing – oh my goodness what a treat.  You can also lighten up the frosting a bit by using light cream cheese – but I had regular cream cheese in the house, so that’ s what I used.  The cupcakes had the perfect amount of frosting to cake ratio in my opinion.  And this time, I had the right amount of food coloring, so the cake was the beautiful deep dark red that it is supposed to be.  It was a match that was definitely meant to be.  This recipe is a keeper – in fact, I can’t wait to make them again.

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• Cooking spray
• 10  ounce  cake flour (about 2 1/2 cups)
• 3  tablespoons  unsweetened cocoa
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1  teaspoon  kosher salt
• 1 1/2  cups  granulated sugar
• 6  tablespoons  unsalted butter, softened
• 2  large eggs
• 1 1/4  cups  non-fat buttermilk
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  white vinegar
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  vanilla extract
• 2  tablespoons  red food coloring (about 1 ounce)

Frosting:

• 5  tablespoons  butter, softened
• 4  teaspoons  non-fat buttermilk
• 1  (8-ounce) block cream cheese, softened
• 3 1/2  cups  powdered sugar (about 1 pound)
• 1 1/4  teaspoons  vanilla extract