Birthday Bees

Slowly getting through the backlog of bakes goodies to share with you guys. These are the cupcakes that accompanied the jungle cake order.

The order was for 20 cakes: half red velvet, half dairy-free chocolate. They came out so lovely looking it was almost a shame to have to cover them with icing!

The red velvet were topped with cream cheese icing, and the dairy free with peppermint icing.

For my red velvet cupcakes, I use the Australian substitute of roughly 1 part cornflour : 3 parts plain flour instead of cake flour. You may use 125g cake flour if you have access to it. I also make my own buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon of either lemon juice or vinegar to a cup of milk and leave it to infuse for 15 minutes.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

Red Velvet Cupcakes
90g plain flour
25 grams cornflour
1.4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp bi-carb soda
1 tbsp cocoa powder
60g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
120ml buttermilk
1 tbsp red food colouring
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda

Cream Cheese Icing
225g cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
60g icing sugar
160ml double cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake liners. Make sure you do this first as you will need them to be prepared in advance.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add egg and vanilla and beat until combined.
3. Add flour, corn flour, bi-carb soda, salt and coca alternatively with buttermilk and food colouring, a third at a time.
4. In a clean cup, combine bi-carb soda and vinegar; wait until it fizzed before folding into the cake mixture.
5. As this will trigger the leavening agent, work quickly to spoon the batter into the cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes; cool on rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan.

Cream Cheese Icing
Beat cream cheese until smooth; beat in vanilla and icing sugar until combined. Whisk in double cream.

Dairy-free chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp bicarb soda
1/3 olive oil
1 cup water

Peppermint Icing
2/3 cup polyunsaturated spread
2 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture
1 teaspoon peppermint essence
green food colouring

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Sift dry ingredients together; add vinegar, essence, oil and water; whisk until ingredients are combined.
3. Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes; cool on rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan.

Peppermint Icing
Beat spread, icing sugar and essence in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add desired amount of food colouring; beat to combine.