Yesterday night after getting off work at the bar, instead of making crazy Friday night plans or gossiping with my girlfriends, I had the following text exchange with my beautiful baking buddy Dee:
D: Why doesn't my red velvet ever turn out as red as it should be? :(
M: Story of my life. (you laugh, but it actually is)
This continued for way longer than a conversation about food colouring should continue, and ended with:
M: I'll try them again and see what I can come up with...the little bastards are always reddish brown.
Because I'm a compulsive perfectionist about some things, cupcakes included, I set out to make the reddest red velvets I've ever made. According to Wikipedia, "Red velvet is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color." If that's the case, then why is every red velvet I've ever seen made on TV this unnatural shade of scarlet that I just can't seem to replicate? This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night (I don't like to focus on real problems)...so here's what happened:
I decided to stick with the ingredients and amounts of my regular red velvet recipe, which is a mish-mash of recipes I've found online and in books. Most red velvet recipes are essentially the same, so I figure this can't be the key to the colour. I kept the cocoa to a minimum, and added what I think is scientifically termed a 'shit-ton' of red food colouring to my buttermilk. By the time the batter was finished, it was definitely bright....bright bloody FUSCHIA. After swearing and stirring it for a while hoping it would magically turn red, I made a thin cocoa-water paste and added more red colour and a little bit of yellow. I threw them in the oven and tried not to look, convinced that my velvets were going to look like a drag-queen's wet dream and not the scarlet beauties I was aiming for. BUT THEN, a 'one month til Christmas' miracle happened... and the cupcakes I ended up with were a gorgeous deep red and totally delicious. I suspect that my oven is actually a portal to Narnia, and that my cupcakes were swapped out by a charming little goat-man who took pity on me swearing at random kitchen appliances. I'm going to take credit anyway though, so here you go. Really Red (yay!) Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.
Lately in this rainy little corner of the world, it's been FREEZING. We've even had snow! In November! Personally, I love it because I think snow makes everything a million times prettier. I love it even more after looking at the gorgeous pictures of snowy scenes on All Things Carly(which you should definitely check out because she's actually diligent about blogging and doesn't forget for weeks at a time like me). Anyway, I was so excited about the pretty snowy icing on everything and the pretty photographs, I decided to make some cupcakes inspired by the beautiful bits of winter.
If this all sounds a bit too whimsical for me, don't worry- I love the snow here because I know it will last a maximum of 3 days, and if we get more than 4 inches there's a strong possibility I won't have to go to work. I'm also confident that I won't wake up to 6 feet of powdery white doom, a-la New Brunswick, which I will then be expected to wade through to get to class/work/the bar. On the flip side, I'm afraid to go anywhere when it's actually snowing because no one really knows how to drive in the snow here...I'm really not too keen on getting plowed down by a soccer-mom in an Escalade who's slammed the brakes on and covered her eyes because she hit some slush.
To summarize: Snow is pretty, snow-themed cupcakes are pretty, take a look and enjoy!
On this rainy November Monday, I should be spending my day off writing policy papers and studying super fun things like the evolution of human rights theory. Instead, I've spent it dancing around my kitchen to Martin Solveig and working on my latest creation: Hot Chocolate Cupcakes. Initially, my plan was to make milk chocolate cupcakes and top them with marshmallow frosting, which was a great plan. Until I nearly blew up my hand mixer in the Great Marshmallow Fiasco of 2011....no, I don't want to talk about it. Anyway! I persevered and the end result is rather delicious. So here we have hot chocolate flavoured cupcakes with fudge frosting and marshmallows....and a pretty amateurish-looking mug of hot chocolate, but I guess that's what you get for 5 minutes of effort. Enjoy!
Because I'm a compulsive perfectionist about some things, cupcakes included, I set out to make the reddest red velvets I've ever made. According to Wikipedia, "Red velvet is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color." If that's the case, then why is every red velvet I've ever seen made on TV this unnatural shade of scarlet that I just can't seem to replicate? This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night (I don't like to focus on real problems)...so here's what happened:
I decided to stick with the ingredients and amounts of my regular red velvet recipe, which is a mish-mash of recipes I've found online and in books. Most red velvet recipes are essentially the same, so I figure this can't be the key to the colour. I kept the cocoa to a minimum, and added what I think is scientifically termed a 'shit-ton' of red food colouring to my buttermilk. By the time the batter was finished, it was definitely bright....bright bloody FUSCHIA. After swearing and stirring it for a while hoping it would magically turn red, I made a thin cocoa-water paste and added more red colour and a little bit of yellow. I threw them in the oven and tried not to look, convinced that my velvets were going to look like a drag-queen's wet dream and not the scarlet beauties I was aiming for. BUT THEN, a 'one month til Christmas' miracle happened... and the cupcakes I ended up with were a gorgeous deep red and totally delicious. I suspect that my oven is actually a portal to Narnia, and that my cupcakes were swapped out by a charming little goat-man who took pity on me swearing at random kitchen appliances. I'm going to take credit anyway though, so here you go. Really Red (yay!) Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. 
