Yay! First post time!
I've been trying to learn the ins and outs of baking for some time now, and I thought it would be fun to chronicle my mistakes and discoveries. In case you couldn't tell, I'm SUPER excited to be doing this.
Aaaaand since this is My DRUNK Bakery, look what I found!
Now this is Great White Beer. The only place I've been able to find this is Lee's Liquor and Total Wine. But we have a WinCo that just opened and THEY HAVE IT! I love this beer.
Moving on...
What did I try baking tonight? Red Velvet Cupcakes.
We're having a St. Patrick's Day potluck at work, and I signed up to bring Green Velvet Cupcakes. I figured I should find a perfect recipe before next week. So here goes!
The recipe I used was one I found on allrecipes.com. I love that site. It has EVERYTHING. The recipe was pretty simple, nothing I hadn't done before.
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 (1 ounce) bottle McCormick® Red Food Color
- 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
So, first off! Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Prepare your cupcake tins! Some people call them muffin tins, but since I only use them for cupcakes, I like to call them as such.
I don't know if this is "proper" or not, but I spray my cupcake tins with non-stick spray so if the cupcakes pillow over the edges, they won't stick. I also double-line mine, because what is the point of pretty liners if you can't see them afterwards?
I had these really pretty black and white patterned liners, so in they went! Yes, I know my stove is dirty... I should probably clean the kitchen :/
Anyhoo... Next step! Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium size bowl.
Now whisk together and set aside.
Time to grab your butter! I don't know if this goes without saying, but I use unsalted butter and ideally, you want it room temperature.
Beat your butter and sugar on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
And of course, you want to scrape down the sides and the bottom with a rubber spatula to make sure nothing escaped the mixer.
Now let's beat in the eggs. One at a time please, we want to make sure they all fully incorporate.
Take that sour cream, and plop it in!
Go ahead and throw in the milk, vanilla and food coloring while you're at it. Just be careful with that red, it's dangerous!
Next, we want to gradually beat in the flour mixture that we had set aside earlier. Add little by little until it is all just blend.
Once that is good to go, it's time to spoon your batter. I like to use an ice cream scoop, because well, I saw it online and it is AWESOME. Seriously, it gets all the cups even and about 2/3 of the way full, which is what you're going for.
All filled and ready to bake!
Pop those little dollops of goodness in the oven for about 20-25 minutes (according to the recipe.) Personally, I like to check my cupcakes at 15 minutes to see how they're doing. I baked these for 20, and probably should have only baked them for about 18.
While those are baking, let's do our frosting!
My favorite is a simple cream cheese frosting. I'm in the process of perfecting it, and I can honestly say this attempt was not even close! I fudged up this one a bit. But oh well. All you need is 1 (8) oz. package of cream cheese, and 4 cups of confectioner's sugar.
Cream cheese!
Now we want to mix in the powdered sugar, but we want to do it slowly and allow it to mix very well before adding more. Also make sure to take breaks and scrape the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula.
After 2 cups of powdered sugar:
After all 4 cups of powdered sugar:
Now I have a teeny confession to make. I went to the store before hand and picked up everything I needed, that I didn't already have. After I put the cupcakes in the oven, and reached for the cream cheese, I realized I had forgotten it >.< But, I remembered we had some cream cheese spread that had barely been used, so in that went.
Unfortunately, I added too much powdered sugar to the amount of cream cheese I had, and my frosting came out a bit too much like royal icing. Oh well, lesson learned :D
Moving on... Beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar for quite some time in order to incorporate lots of air. Everybody loves a light, fluffy, cream cheese frosting!
By now, your cupcakes should be done. Go ahead and take them out of the oven, and test them with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, viola! You're good to go. If not, just pop them back in for a few minutes, and check them again.
Let them hang out in the cupcake tin until they're cool enough to handle, then move them over to a cooling rack.
Slap some frosting into a piping bag, and get ready to cover those cupcakes!
Now, this is definitely one of my most problematic areas. I NEED practice, and I know it, so that's okay. Also, like the genius I am, I keep forgetting to get an actual metal tip, so I keep using the coupler-thingy.
Cream Cheese Frosting + Red Velvet Cupcakes = YUM.
Definitely not my biggest failure, but not exactly my best cupcakes either.
Recap time:
- Frosting was a FAIL. At least I know where I messed up though. I can learn!
- Cupcakes were a TEENSY bit dry, probably cooked them a little too long.
- Not as chocolately as I had hoped :[
- The liners are ADORABLE! Sorry, I just love them!
All in all, I don't know if I want to try a different recipe, or just to try fix this one. I think I might just add a little more cocoa powder next time and see how that works out :]
If anyone decides to give this recipe a shot themselves, please please PLEASE let me know how it turned out for you!
I hope that My Drunk Bakery could make your day about 20% cooler ;]
