Not So Red Velvet Cupcakes
OK, so this got rave reviews from the tasters and all, but I’d rate it as one of my biggest flops in a long time. I spent weeks trolling for the perfect recipe and had very, very high hopes for this. It wasn’t inedible, but it fell more than a little bit short of the hype.
Recipe for the cupcakes and frosting are here.
I followed everything to the letter, EXCEPT I’m a bit of a dunce and also a dark chocolate junkie. The primary duncery was my foolish belief that I should resist all instinct and leave the oven undisturbed until the minimum recommended cooking time had passed. Result? Dry cupcakes. So, so sad!
Beyond that, aka, the secondary duncery: Dark chocolate cocoa powder makes it virtually impossible to achieve a red result. These would have been more aptly named Black Velvet Cupcakes.
I’m not totally giving up on Red Velvet, but the hunt continues for a solid recipe.
Regarding cream cheese frosting, the recipe above is OK. It’s dense and pipeable and not overly sweet. It wasn’t awful or anything, but again, I was expecting a real knock-my-socks-off-whiz-bang-zowie! result. It definitely didn’t hit that level on the Culinary Quirk taste o meter.
If you’ve read this far and you really are interested in the finer points of frosting, then I urge you to try this. It’s a cream cheese frosting that incorporates whipped cream and I’m totally hooked on this combo. It’s light and flavorful and *perfect* for topping a nice, densely moistly delicious cupcake. mmmmmmm!
Time to Create: 2-3 hours, including all prep & cleanup & allowing time for the cupcakes to cool before frosting and all that jazz.
Time to Concept: Weeks. Ridiculous amounts of hours of recipe scouring went into this endeavor.
Time to Consume: This is the first time in the history of my kitchen that I’ve thrown a cupcake away. I sent all but one cupcake off to the tasting crew. That poor little fella sat in my fridge for a week or so before sent him to the trash. I feel evil just writing that! What kind of monster throws away cupcakes?!
