Red Velvet Cupcakes

Time to celebrate!!!

Firstly, we’re celebrating our avocado break – ahem thank you for your many contributions Sfizzle but let’s take some time to de-green ok?

De-green? How do we de-green? WITH RED, YOU PAMPLEMOUSSES!

Now before we proceed with our redness, what else are we celebrating? CRICKET. I know you guys have missed me filling everyone in on cricket happenings. It hasn’t actually been the best of cricket weeks but yesterday was wonderful because it was almost not-wonderful and hence in the end it was quite wonderful.

Afghanistan (aka the only cricket team I support unconditionally) beat Bangladesh by 2 wickets with 2 balls to spare and I was very stressed. But everything was ok in the end.

And so today we have cupcakes.

Where did all this redness come from you ask? Well, I assure you oldest and wisest of sisters, not evil food colouring. Because I’m a healthy responsible baker now. So no food colouring. (Except when I want something to be blue.)

So after much contemplation, here’s what I did to make 12 cutie cupcakes:

• Prep the beetroot. Scrub it a bit then wrap it in aluminium foil and it’s ready to roast – for about 40 mins on 180 C. It should be nice and soft when it’s done. I only used about ¼ or a 1/3 of the beet, peeled and put into a grinder to make ¼ cup beet purée. Mix in ¾ cup milk and it will look like bandung* but remember: it is not bandung. Let this sit while you do other things.

• Cream ¼ cup butter with ½ cup sugar.
• Mix in 1 tsp vanilla and beat in an egg.
• Separately, combine 2/3 cup flour with 1 tbs cocoa, pinch of salt and ½ tsp baking powder.
• Alternate between adding the dry ingredients and the milk mix into the butter.
• Bake for 20 mins at 180 C. They’ll practically be jumping out of their cupcake cages.

They’re a lovely soft texture that’s not at all crumbly and a teensy bit chewy.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• I put ¼ cup raw sugar in the grinder and it became white like icing sugar 😮

• Mix in 50 g cream cheese and 1 tbs butter

Don’t be an impatient moose and wait for the cupcakes to cool before attempting to frost them. Or you will fail.

 

*Bandung is a Malay/Singaporean drink that’s basically rose flavoured milk. In fact, in South Asia it’s just called rose milk. But we Fizzles used to call it pink milk because it is milk and it is pink and we are very logical people.