In the past week curtains have been made, walls have been painted, and lots of cake has been consumed.
It's quite surprising, really, as I had my usual Post-Doctor-Who-Season-Finale
-Funk last Sunday (*sigh*, I love that man), but it seemed to have disappeared by Monday morning just in time for me to take a trip to Ikea and spend WAY too much. Mucho moolah might have been parted with, but it has made my gaff a nicer, more comfy place to be. (That's my justification and I'm sticking to it.)
Not only have I been banging away on the old sewing machine, but on Saturday New Boyfriend and I made Red Velvet cupcakes. Now, the whole concept of RV cake is a fairly new one to me. I think I only came across it in Jan/Feb this year, and was immediately taken with the idea. Gawd bless those crazy Americans. So, much trawling of recipes later (I love the internet) I came across a couple that sounded easy enough (if a bit scary on the amount of food colouring involved) and whipped up a (humungous) batch.
Here is the recipe I used, which is a bit of a mix between two different ones I found:
250g plain flour
2 tblsp cocoa (Green and Blacks all the way, baby)
100g softened butter
300g caster sugar
2 large eggs
250ml buttermilk (or, plain milk with a teaspoon of vinegar added and left to stand for 10 minutes)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp white distilled vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 whole bottle of red food colouring (about 80ml)
Cream butter and sugar; add eggs one at a time, beating well in between; sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt into a large bowl; whisk milk, vinegar, vanilla and colouring together in another bowl, add wet ingredients to dry in stages, beating well in between; divide into cupcakes papers (don't over fill, they rise A LOT) and bake at 180c/350f for about 20 mins. Et voila, beautiful dark, red cake. Makes about 30 small cupcakes.
Leave to cool, then ice with:
100g softened cream cheese
100g softened butter
600g (eek!) icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
All creamed together well. You can add more or less icing sugar according to taste. Top with a cherry, Minstrel or whatever you fancy.
We didn't add the whole bottle of food colouring, but I think I will next time. Even though the batter is SCARILY red, like someone has been murdered in your best china bowl, because of the lovely, dark Green and Blacks cocoa, they come out lushiously dark. I'd also try baking them in larger cake cases, more on the muffin-sized side of things.
But, most importantly, they are DELISH.
4 comments:
Ooooh they look nice.
(at first I thought you were talking about cupcake plushies made out of actual red velvet...blush)
(this is down to me not reading things properly and in order. I plead dyslexia)
What on earth are we meant to do for telly on Saturday nights in 2009?! A whole year without DW. I will have Tennant-Moffat Deficiancy Syndrome.
I believe they're doing a few one-hour specials throughout the year rather than a series. I think that's right, anyway....?
Oooh - that will be acceptable :)
Post a Comment