The past three weeks have been a blur, so this weekend I caught up on all my errands (2 months worth of laundry by monopolizing the washers in my apartment) and had some fun making cupcakes. I even got some roses to enjoy together with Gray. Red velvet is one of my favorite flavors and goes with cream cheese frosting like peanut butter and jelly. The base of the cake is vegan but I’m still figuring out how to make this cream cheese frosting vegan so the Spork can eat it too. I’ve tried vegan cream cheese in the past and it melted very fast so I have test that out a little more!
Roses may be Gray’s favorite flower. They are not poisonous to him and he sniffs them more than any other flower, always leaving little cat hairs atop the petals.
Red Velvet Cream Cheese Cupcakes
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2.5 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 tablespoons cocoa powder (not dutch pressed)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Wet ingredients
- 2 cups soy milk (room temp)
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 2/3 cup canola oil
- 1 teaspoon gel food color, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
- 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 0.5 teaspoons almond extract
- 2 teaspoons chocolate extract
Frosting
- 10 tablespoons butter
- 16 oz cream cheese (two 8 oz blocks)
- 7.5 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanila
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350 and take soy milk out of fridge, add the apple cider vinegar and let sit at room temp to curdle (we are making the non-dairy version of buttermilk in this step).
- Add dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk to mix.
- Add gel food coloring to 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl and mix, it is ok if it does not completely dissolve at this step.
- Add canola oil, vanilla extract, almond extract, and chocolate extract to a medium bowl and mix. Add in the gel food color above and whisk with a whisk until gel is dissolved (will turn a bright magenta color).
- Add wet ingredients in the medium bowl to the dry ingredients in the large bowl in three partitions, mixing in between.
- Line 12 cupcake pan with cupcake liners and fill each cupcake hole 3/4 full with batter. Bake for 20 min at 350C. Then let cool for 5 minutes on a rack. Then transfer cupcakes from the cupcake pan to cooling rack to continue cooling. I use silicon tongs (soft so not to make dents in cupcakes) for this step to avoid touching the cupcakes which are still hot.
- Let cool COMPLETELY.
Frosting
- Bring cream cheese and butter out, put in a mixing bowl and let warm to soften slightly about 15 minutes. Cream these two together with a paddle attachment (if using a stand mixer) or using a hand mixer regular non-whisk attachment for 2-3 minutes till evenly mixed up. Add vanilla.
- Add in powdered sugar, mix till homogeneous every 3 cups. If you have a high level of motivation and plenty time to spare you can sift the powdered sugar in but that is completely optional. I did not shift, the cupcakes look like they do in the pictures.
Decorating cupcakes
- Scoop frosting into a piping bag fitted with a large start tip (Wilton 1M is a good one but any start tip that is of similar size will work). Seal bag and pipe swirls on top cooled cupcakes.
- Sprinkle gold stars on some cupcakes (optional). Top with a strawberry or raspberry. Make sure you pick a small-ish strawberries to keep it looking proportion.
Hello! I'm Sarah and this is Gray. This site is filled with recipes for desserts, savories, and photos of everything delicious we ate when traveling. Enjoy!
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