Inside Out Red Velvets

After almost 3 months of crazy holiday baking and adventures, I'm back to blogging! You're still there, aren't you?

Speaking of holidays, another "holiday" is coming up, Valentine's day! I'm not sure if it's an occasion I like or not. I feel like people generally get ripped off during Valentine's - red roses, chocolates, fancy dates, etc. Plus, I still find it a bit cheesy and cringe-inducing to go out on Valentine's day to see sappy couples everywhere. But, I do appreciate how the occasion tries to make you more appreciative of the important people in your life. So then, if that's the point of Valentine's day, wouldn't it be meaningful to make them something with your own two hands?

Keeping it in the spirit of the event (albeit celebrated earlier), I wanted to make red velvet cupcakes for my family, some friends, and my boyfriend. But, batter ready and oven preheated, I find out that I only have about 12 3-oz cupcake liners left. Wow. So instead, I decided to make 12 3-oz cupcakes, 12 1-oz cupcakes and inside out red velvet cakes.

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RED VELVET CUPCAKES (adapted from here)
Yield: 3 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients
287g Cake flour
18g Cocoa powder
4g Baking powder
169g Unsalted butter, room temperature
385g Sugar
150g (3 pcs) Eggs
3g Vanilla extract
1g Salt
24g Red food coloring
25g Lukewarm water
263g Buttermilk (Or pour 15g white vinegar on 248g milk, let sit for at least 5 minutes)
3g Baking soda
15g White vinegar

Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350F (One of the tricks to getting flat topped cupcakes and not mini volcanoes is to make sure the oven is not too hot. So, try to get to know your oven and adjust accordingly. For instance, I just set my oven to 250F for this recipe.)

2. Sift together the cake flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.

3. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

4. Add in eggs one at a time, making sure it's well incorporated before adding the next. Add in vanilla extract, too.

5. Slowly add water, red food coloring, and salt.

6. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry). Do not overmix.

7. Combine the baking soda and vinegar (yes, like the volcano project in grade school) in a small bowl and incorporate into the batter immediately.

8. Fill cupcake liners a little over halfway and bake for 20-25 minutes.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Ingredients
70g Butter, room temperature
150g Cream cheese, room temperature
350g Powdered sugar
2g Vanilla extract

Procedure
1. Beat together butter and cream cheese.

2. Gradually add powdered sugar - adjust amount until you get the desired piping/spreading consistency.

3. Add vanilla extract and beat for about 1 minute more.

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*I used a little over half of the batter and baked it in an 11X14X1 pan for 25 minutes. I then cut Red Velvet circles using a cookie cutter and stacked the cake and icing on top of each other, guided by a ring mold I made from acetate. I chilled it overnight, removing the acetate the following morning.