Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 24
 
These are your classic red velvet cupcakes. Super moist, light chocolaty flavor with decadent cream cheese icing. YUM.
Ingredients
  • 2½ cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 oz (1 box) red food coloring
  • 1¼ cups vegetable oil
  • 1½ cups sugar
  • 2 eggs (at room temperature)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 tsp white or apple cider vinegar
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ cup chocolate chunks
Icing
  • 16 oz cream cheese (2 packages)
  • ½ cup butter
  • 2¾ cups powdered sugar
  • Dash salt
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • ½ tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Line your cupcake pan with muffin tins (this recipe makes 24 cupcakes)
  3. In a bowl, combine the following ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder. Sift and set aside.
  4. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, combine sugar, oil, eggs (one at a time), vanilla, and red food coloring.
  5. Add ⅓ of your dry ingredients into the red sugar mixture. Mix well. Add ½ of your buttermilk to the red sugar mixture. Mix well. Alternate adding the dry mixture and the buttermilk to the red sugar mixture, ending with the dry.
  6. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and the baking soda. Let it fizz for a minute and then add it to your red mixture.
  7. Your batter should be a beautiful red color and medium consistency.
  8. Add in the chocolate chunks, stirring by hand.
  9. Fill your muffin tins ½ to ¾ of the way full with your red batter. Some easy ways to do this are to use a mini ice cream scoop or to put some of the batter into a measuring cup and pour into the muffin cups.
  10. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes, or until the cupcakes pass the toothpick test.
  11. Let them cool completely before icing them.
To make the icing...
  1. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer cream the butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and lemon juice. Mix well until the icing is light and fluffy.
Notes
Decorating tips... Since I didn't have any of my piping tools with me, I put some icing into a ziplock bag, cut a small hole in the corner of the bag, and piped away! It worked extremely well (as you can see by the beautiful cupcakes!). I also sprinkled some milk chocolate shavings on top of the cupcakes.
Recipe by bake (+travel) with sonia at http://www.bakewithsonia.com/red-velvet-surprise-cupcakes/