Monday, January 10, 2011

Cupcakes: Red Velvet and Chocolate

I revisited two cupcake recipes in the span of 24 hours and baked around 36 cupcakes for my Chinese school classmates. This Saturday was my brother's turn to bring snacks so I decided to prepare the snacks for him. Did I mention that I'm in the same class as my brother? It's actually not that bad having a class with him, although we do bicker sometimes. Also, you might be wondering if I feel stupid being in the same class as him, considering that I'm 3 yrs older than him... not really. We started learning Chinese at the same time, so he's been learning it for as long as I have. :p

I made red velvet cupcakes the night before Saturday Chinese school and chocolate cupcakes along with cream cheese frosting early in the next morning. The night before, I had to finish my 500 word Chinese essay about Christmas and various worksheets that I did not do during my winter break. I tried waking up early, but I didn't finish everything until 8:30ish. I was around 20 minutes late to Chinese school, oops!
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I decided to remake these red velvet cupcakes because I realized that the last time I made them, I over beat the batter. It didn't make the cupcakes dense or horrible, but there were unsightly holes. At that time I didn't realize that anything was wrong, but in retrospect I do now. Then I chose one bowl buttermilk cupcakes because I needed a dozen more cupcakes. Using the easy chocolate cupcake recipe would produce 24, so I went with the buttermilk recipe.
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The red velvet turned out nicely this time around. There were still some holes, but not as many. This batch provided me with 22 or so red velvet cupcakes. There was supposed to be 24 cupcakes, but it seems like whenever I use this recipe, I always end up with less cupcakes. When I was switching the trays, to ensure even baking, I was nervous that something bad would happen. Nothing terrible happened, whewf.



As for the chocolate cupcakes, they tasted really good. I decreased the sugar by a little. But I made a major mistake, I whisked all the dry ingredients except for the cocoa powder and added the milk. I realized too late that I didn't add in my cocoa powder. By the time I added it in, the cocoa powder had clumped up and was not evenly distributed in the batter... There was nothing I could do at that point, but to bake those cupcakes and hope for the best. After they were done baking, I tasted one and it had some chocolate clumps. None of my classmates mentioned anything about them though. My brother told me that someone had a weird look on their face. :/ Then he also added that no one else would notice because they probably don't bake.
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My messy frosting skills. Cupcakes were frosted in a rushed fashion, as I was late to school. My lovely mom also helped me.

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Wow, I finished baking! Very blurry picture, taken in a hurry. Notice the chocolate cupcakes in the corner?

Note: Last time I made these, my dad didn't really like them. This time, he loved them for some reason.

4 comments:

  1. hi esther, red velevt cupcakes always look very nice, very often i feel so tempted to try and yet hesitated due to the much coloring needed. did you use the liquid color/powder form? hey, i think your mandarin level is not bad..can write up to 500 words.

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  2. Hi Lena, I totally understand how you feel about them. Personally, I don't really like them because of all the food coloring, but other people like them. I use the liquid food coloring; it's mixed with the cocoa powder so there aren't any lumps. I've always wondered how they would turn out without food coloring, but then they wouldn't be red velvet anymore. ;)

    :D I guess it's so-so. In Taiwan it would be a elementary school student's level.

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  3. Red Velvet is one of my favorites. I try not to think about all that food coloring. Yours look like the perfect red color!

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  4. Jenn, thanks for answering the question I had. It was a very helpful answer. I recently read on Baking Bites that there was a natural red food coloring, sounds like a great replacement right? :) All that food coloring sure did its job.

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Thanks for reading my blog. I love hearing about your thoughts and/or your advice. :)

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