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Spring Treat
Red Velvet Cupcakes
Red velvet. The “little black dress” of the dessert world. Almost everything that involves cake comes in red velvet, from cupcakes to whoopie pies, even cookies.
The southern cake features a hint of cocoa and an abundance of red dye. They can be colored with beets or other foods but are generally tinted red with food coloring. The classic frosting choice is cream cheese, but I added a dash of cinnamon to it to spice them up a little bit.
Kind of gross, right? It’s the cocoa powder, red food dye, and some vanilla extract mixed together. It’s really not pretty…yet.
The addition of buttermilk adds tenderness to the cake and a hint of tang. I make my own by using one cup whole milk and one tablespoon distilled white vinegar and letting it sit for five minutes.
It’s looking prettier already. Baking soda and vinegar give a chemical reaction that makes the cake fluffy and velvety. It’s mixed in at the end, it also helps the cakes rise.
The red really shows through with the batter. You can add less food dye for a darker red color after it bakes, I used almost the full three tablespoons and got this bright red.
The finished products. My work area is tiny, I have cupcakes on my laptop, I’m used to it by now.
These cupcakes are great and the frosting is amazing, it’s the best cream cheese frosting I’ve ever had and actually contends with some buttercream I’ve tasted, I highly recommend giving the cinnamon a shot instead of just using the traditional plain cream cheese frosting.
Print Recipe
Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from Joy The Baker
Makes 12 cupcakes
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 tablespoons red food coloring
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
Preheat oven to 325°F and line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.
Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, add the egg and beat until incorporated.
In a small bowl, mix together cocoa powder, food coloring, and vanilla extract until well combined. Add to the butter mixture and beat well. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so that it is all incorporated.
Sift together the flour and salt.
Add half of the buttermilk while mixing on low speed and then add half the flour. Continue to beat until just combined and add the rest of the buttermilk and the rest of the flour.
Mix in the baking soda and white vinegar and beat well for a couple minutes on low.
Fill liners about 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes and then move to a wire rack to cool completely while you prepare the frosting.
Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Joy The Baker
2 1/3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, cold
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Sift the sugar and add to the mixing bowl. Add butter and cinnamon and beat until well incorporated. Add the cream cheese all at once, mine was cold but not straight out of the fridge. Beat for 5 minutes or until fluffy and smooth, don’t overbeat because it will become runny.
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30 Responses to “Red Velvet Cupcakes”
Gorgeous cupcakes! I just love that red batter. Immediately invokes childhood memories.
Yummm, I just made a batch of Red Velvet the other day! I’m normally not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting (or anything *super* sweet), but I make mine with a whole vanilla bean and somehow the uber-sweetness paired with the tangy buttermilk cake is absolutely divine!
I’ve never tried cinnamon before, but I must do so in the future!
Also, I love that your recipes tend to yield smaller amounts. My favorite RVC recipe (from Magnolia’s bakery in NYC – quite possibly the best RVC ever made!) yields 36 and I’d rather not consume 3 dozen cupcakes by myself…
I usually bake in smaller amounts, like a dozen, so I post the halved recipe if it was a larger recipe.
I don’t know what I’d do with three dozen cupcakes either!
OMG these have got to be the prettiest red velvet cupcakes.. will surely try them very soon x
gosh. they´re beautiful…mine never come out soo red =(
i love them, they look delicious aswell!!
all that food coloring definitely helped, I may tone it down a little next time.
wow wow, wish I knew how to convert cups to grams since I had no idea what a cup is equal to, but I will totally find out and introduce England to these bitchin cupcakes
Hey, I made one of Ryan’s recipes the other day and I just used a normal cup. I had a bit too much mixture but i just saved it and made another batch
Just use a cup that you’d use for tea or coffee. I gather that as long as you use the same sized cup throughout the measuring of all the ingredients then your cupcakes will be fine.
Hope that helped.
Are those mini cupcakes? I know you said a standard muffin tin but it’s so hard to tell
They came out really well though
nope, these are full sized.
Just made these – and they are delicious!! I did halve the icing quantities though (which I know may be considered to be a massive no-no!) and still had more then enough.
I had a little more than enough with the full sized, I don’t think I could’ve gotten away with halving it..maybe I’m an icing glutton though
So your red velvet cupcakes look perfect! I tried my first red velvet cupcakes the other day, from martha Stewart. I dont have buttermilk so i tried the white vinegar substitution. They were yummy, but EXTREMELY moist, too moist. Could this have been because I didn’t use real buttermilk? they don’t sell that where I live. Help? can your recipe work with a buttermilk substitution?
I always use the white vinegar/whole milk substitute. It worked perfectly on this, these came out super soft and perfectly moist (not too much, not too little).
is it ok if you dont alternate the wet and dry ingredients? cause i was thinking of just dumping all the dry ingredients in. hehehehehe.
alternating the ingredients help to prevent overmixing. if you mix the flour for too long the cake gets a lot more dense.
I love this recipe, but I was wondering if you know how to convert this to just a regular cake recipe? Do I just pour the batter into a cake pan instead of cupcake tins? I’ve never actually made a cake from scratch, only cupcakes.
yes, you would just pour it into a cake pan and let it bake a little longer (check after 30-35 minutes and continue to check based on that). this recipe should make one 8″ layer, so double it for two 8″ layers.
I made these for my friends for Christmas, and put them in little jars like you did for the vanilla cupcakes. They were a hit! The icing was absolutely delicious. Now I’m trying out the vegan pumpkin bread, and it smells amazing! I can’t wait to taste it. So glad I found your blog
Woow just made the frosting, out of this world! The cinnamon makes it amazing, thanks!
i made these today for my boyfriend for valentines day! they’re in the oven as we speak and look awesome already.
I tried these and I loooooved it! Thank you for sharing!
Hi! i’m very exited to make this! but i have a little question… why there is 4 spoons of butter and 1/2 cup of butter? should i mixed?
the 1/2 cup is buttermilk, it’s different than butter. you can find it near the milk in your grocery store, but if you can’t find it still you can replace it with 1/2 cup whole milk + 1/2 tablespoon distilled white vinegar.
thank u! i missed in translation
I made these last night! The cake(?) part was really good, the icing was okay.. I think I did it wrong? Or maybe it’s cause I didn’t sift the powdered sugar.. but that’s all really that I didn’t do.. only cause I don’t have a sifter.
Is that wrong? Do I really need to sift it?
I feel like I’m really missing out on some good frosting
Sifting is what will help your sugar not clump up and give you a really, really smooth frosting. I always sift dry ingredients and I use a sieve (it’s just easier to clean than those commercial sifters). They are only about $5-6 and are totally worth it.
Hi!
i made these cupcakes today and they were delicious, the only thing was that mine weren’t really red. i followed the recipe perfectly, i dont know what happened. they tasted delicious, but only a slight hint of red. and when i mixed the cocoa powder, vanilla, and red food colouring, it was really dry, it didnt look like the picture that you posted. any ideas as to what went wrong =(
usually when I make this recipe it forms a dry ball, so I’m sure you did it right and I’m not sure what happened. Maybe add a tiny bit more food dye next time?
ok thanks =)