Crimson and Cocoa



Well, winter is still raging here and not much is up. Arielle is starting solid food and Im spending more and more time in the kitchen... Although not only for baby food!


I have really been craving baked goodies and cupcakes seem to hit the spot. Red Velvet to be more precise! They are not very popular here in Canada, in fact, I only know of them because I watch the Food Network. In any case, we picked a recipe (this one) and opted for the cream cheese icing that came with.I did make some modifications... I am not a fan of chemical additions, so I cut the amount of red food coloring by half. For the icing, a half recipe was more than enough and I replaced the vanilla with orange extract. I used an ice cream scoop to spoon the batter into the paper cups but only got 15 cupcakes... far from the 2.5 dozen! They were pretty huge - they rise tremendously!

The results

At first I was not impressed... I ate one warm, the sides were crunchy and the chocolate taste so very subtle. Leaving them overnight softened them to an amazingly airy, spongey, delicately chocolatey goodness. They were a complete sucess with everybody, my mother even asking me for the recipe. It is partly because of my Kitchenaid mixer I'm sure :)


This week-end I will repeat the recipe but with more cocoa to make them extra chocolatey and add a twist by smothering them in "Fleur de Sel" salty caramel. Can't wait! Will let you know how it goes!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got a recipee for red velvet too but never bothered trying it since I found it weird adding food coloring in a cupcake. But now I think I'll try it. Mine requires 2tbs of coloring, how much does yours require?

I share your puzzlement in the yeilding quantities I usually get half of what I was supposed to get when I bake.

Frédérique said...

Mine required 1.5 tbsps but I only added 0.75... I guess we fill the muffin tins up too much!

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