Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes

Hello, my name is Ashlee Gormley and for my blog posts, I have chosen to do baking. 

Truthfully, I only chose to do baking so I could eat the project after I took pictures. But I also really enjoy it. There are a variety of recipes to choose from, and even then your options aren’t limited to just those. You can improvise and recreate the recipe to your liking.

In addition, I took creative cooking last year and I really liked the different foods we got to eat. We made pizza, salads, muffins, and more. But for this project I am specifically making desserts.

I thought it would be fun to make cupcakes for Thanksgiving, but unfortunately time was not on my side. So, instead, I made them just for my family that weekend. Looking through the book I chose to base my project off on, Petite Sweets, the Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes stood out to me the most (definitely because the picture looked so good). It was a really light brown cake with a white frosting. Really simple, but really delicious.

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes from Petite Sweets

So let’s begin with the steps I took to create this cupcake!

To start with, I gathered all the ingredients:

Chocolate velvet cake:

• 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1½ teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Vanilla frosting:

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To start with, I set the oven to 350°F so that the oven would be ready by the time I had mixed all the ingredients together.

To start the cupcake batter, I took an electric mixer and creamed the butter and sugar together until it was "light and fluffy." Then, I beat in the egg and mixed in the cocoa powder. 

In a second bowl I mixed the flour, salt, and baking soda. 

In a third bowl, I mixed milk, vinegar, and vanilla. 

I didn't have buttermilk like the recipe called for, so I used regular milk in the last bowl. As I said you could always do before, I improvised! The buttermilk only adds to the red color, so using milk didn't alter the final product besides appearance. 

Anyhow, after all those ingredients are mixed together, I added the second and third bowl to the electric mixer alternately. I mixed the batter until it was smooth and then spooned the batter into an already-prepared muffin tin. Then I placed the muffin tins (I ended up with about 20 cupcakes- 2 muffin tins) into the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. 

As the cupcakes were baking, I started on the frosting. I took a saucepan, combined the flour and milk, and stirred it over medium heat. Over time, the liquid mixture thickened. When it was totally thickened, I covered the saucepan and placed it in the fridge. 

In a cleaned electric mixer, I beat the sugar, butter, and vanilla. When the mixture in the fridge was completely chilled, I added that to the electric mixture and creamed them together. 

At this point, the cupcakes in the oven were done so I took them out. 

Then I took a container to put the icing in so it would be easier to frost the cupcakes.      

And finally I frosted the cupcakes, placed them in cupcake liners, and even added some decorations to make them look nice.

Ta-da! Complete! The process of making the cupcakes took a while, but it was really fun to decorate the final product. 

If I were to do this again, I would probably do it when my dad wasn't home so I wouldn't have to keep shooing him away when he'd try to eat the uncompleted cupcake. I'd also apply more cooking spray to the muffin tins because the cupcakes would not come out of the tins, so the tops kept tearing from the bottoms. 

I would highly recommend making these cupcakes if you're looking for something easy to make. They were all devoured within two days. I'm definitely going to make them again sometime (hopefully) soon.

What's your favorite dessert to make? Have you ever added your own little spin to the recipe? How did it turn out? 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.