Red velvet cupcake recipe

How To Make Red Velvet Cupcakes

You’ll start by whisking together the dry ingredients:

• Cake flour: Cake flour has a lower protein content than all-purpose flour, which helps create a lighter and softer cake. If you don’t have any cake flour on hand, I’ve included a note in the recipe for how to make your own. I do find that actual cake flour works best to create a soft cupcake, my favorite brand is Pillsbury Softasilk.
• Cocoa Powder: You’ll only be using 2 tablespoons of unsweetened natural cocoa powder in this recipe. It provides a little chocolate flavor, but it’s not too overpowering.
• Baking Soda + Salt: To help the cupcakes rise and for flavor!

Then you’ll mix up your wet ingredients:

• Butter + Sugar: I use unsalted butter and granulated sugar in this recipe. It’s important to cream together the butter and sugar for 4-5 minutes. This will incorporate more air into your cake batter and create a lighter cupcake.
• Egg + Vanilla Extract: You’ll be using one large egg and a teaspoon of pure vanilla extra. A room temperature egg is best, so just be sure to set it out ahead of time with your other ingredients.
• Distilled White Vinegar + Red Food Coloring: A little vinegar helps the cupcakes rise and enhances the color of the red cupcakes. I used liquid food coloring for these cupcakes.
• Oil: Wait, what?! I found that the cupcakes made with just butter were too dry and the cupcakes made with just oil were a little bland. The solution? I used a combination of butter and oil to give the cupcakes a buttery taste and keep them moist (just like my lemon blueberry bundt cake!).
• Buttermilk: It’s best to set the buttermilk out ahead of time to come to room temperature. Instead of mixing all of the buttermilk directly in with the rest of the wet ingredients, you’ll alternate mixing it in with the dry ingredients.

Once you’ve mixed up the cupcake batter, you’ll divide it evenly between 16 cupcake liners in muffin pans and bake them. Make sure you don’t overfill the cupcake liners, otherwise the cupcakes will overflow. I only fill my liners about halfway full, it won’t seem like much but the batter rises quite a bit in the oven.
I used my homemade cream cheese frosting for this recipe because it pairs perfectly with red velvet. If you’re looking for a different kind of frosting, my homemade vanilla buttercream or even chocolate buttercream would be delicious on these cupcakes too.
For the frosting, I used my Wilton 1M piping tip. I absolutely LOVE that piping tip and use it all of the time. You can use it to frost a tall swirl (like in these pictures) or make a simple rose design. I have a full tutorial for how to frost cupcakes here, super easy too!