Michelle here with my yummy Red Velvet Vampire Cupcakes! If anyone truly knows me, they will tell you that I love red velvet cake. It could be the deep red color (my favorite!) the southern girl inside of me, or the scrumptious chocolate cake. It is truly a mystery, but I can say honestly that it is my favorite cake of all time.
I have always had a fascination for Vampires as well. I love reading Anne Rice, Bram Stoker and other random vampire books. I will admit to enjoying the Twilight series, although the movies don't really do it for me. But I digress....onto what you are reading this blog for...the scariest cupcake of them all---Count Cupcakeula!
How could I even try to bake a cupcake that could be compared to my favorite horror characters of all time? I wanted to be sure to encompass everything I loved about vampires. Black liners for the dark cloak, deep red cake for the blood that sustained their existence and pale white frosting for the skin that has never been touched by the sun. Oh yeah and let's not forget the edible glitter. Just in case they are the type of vampires that prefer to sparkle. :)
The baking started off with your typical cake recipe. I sifted flour, creamed butter and eggs and prepared the cupcake tins for the completed batter. I went with a mixture of half cake flour and half all purpose flour. We have learned in the past that although cake flour is a great addition, it sometimes can leave the cuppies a little too dense. I wanted these little monsters to be moist and springy, and this half and half mixture accomplished that goal.
After the basics were done, I moved on to the three most necessary ingredients in any red velvet cake recipe: buttermilk, vinegar and red food coloring.
I mixed the buttermilk and red food coloring together. To get this beautiful rich red, I had to use almost an entire container of Wilton's cake frosting coloring in Red, Red.
It turned out perfect! The vinegar was next. I mixed the vinegar with the baking soda. Honestly, part of me felt like I was making a volcano with the kids in my preschool class rather than baking cupcakes! But this mixture caused an amazing transformation in the batter. It turned it silky and smooth.
After prepping the batter, I had to take another picture. They looked so pretty and red. I wasn't sure I would be able to last the 20 minute baking time. I was just hoping that they would stay this lovely color!
And I am pleased to announce, with photographic proof, that they did!
After cooling the cupcakes on wire racks, it was time to frost them.
I went with a cream cheese frosting. I used a large round tip to pipe swirls on top. After that, a good sprinkle of clear edible glitter made them sparkle like a vampire in the meadow on a clear sunny day!
I will have to say that one of my good friends, Ginger, loves the sparkly type of Vampires, so she was pretty psyched about the sparkles. I even gave her the first cupcake to enjoy. It looks like she was happy about that!
Now onto the most important part of any vampire, the blood dripping fangs! I thought quite awhile on the perfect blood for these cupcakes. I thought about using strawberry glaze or raspberry preserves. I decided on Wilton's red sparkle gel icing. I just didn't want to play around with too many flavors and the sugary taste of the gel doesn't overpower the chocolate or cream cheese flavors.
These cupcakes turned out exactly as I imagined and they tasted amazing!
Recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes:
Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa
1-1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
red food coloring
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp
vinegar
1 cup buttermilk
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt and cocoa.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until completely mixed- about 4 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing after each addition. Add vanilla and mix once again.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the red food coloring into the buttermilk. Add the amount of food coloring needed to get a rich red color.
4. Alternately add the flour and red buttermilk to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix the batter well, scraping the sides of the bowl periodically.
5. Combine the vinegar and baking soda in a mug or small bowl. Mix and fold into the batter with a spatula. The batter should turn silky.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on wire racks.
Standard Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
2- 8 oz. packs of cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Wilton's red cake gel
Directions:
1. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until mixed completely. Now you can frost with a knife, or fill up a frosting bag and pipe away!
2. To make the vampires dripping fangs, poke a whole on either side of the frosting with the tip of the cake gel and pipe down.
I hope you have enjoyed this recipe. See you next blog!
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