Cupcakes may be one of the cutest foods you can eat, but they're also practical to serve, whether you're planning a picnic, a bridal shower or a graduation party. Even better, you can save money by baking your own.
We've chosen a batter for Red Velvet Cake topped with cream cheese frosting. The recipe has been around since the 1920s, when the cake was the signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. But with the resurgence in cupcakes, it's hotter than ever.
Red Velvet is a mild chocolate or devil's food cake with a healthy dose of red food coloring. Additions of buttermilk and vinegar also bring the reddish nature of cocoa to the fore. A word of caution to the novice baker: Be careful when measuring this much food coloring; it's the devil to clean up.
There are hundreds of cupcake recipes out there now, and whichever you choose to make, success begins by learning two basic techniques: how to measure flour, and how to cream butter and sugar.
Technique No. 1: Flour needs a light hand. Packing too much into a cup can make a cake heavy and dense. For this recipe, we use cake flour. Pour it into a large bowl, then whisk it, which is like sifting it. Lightly spoon the flour into a measuring cup, then level it off. No tapping, packing or scooping! If you have a scale, a cup of cake flour weighs 4 ounces.
Technique No. 2: Creaming together butter and sugar beats thousands of tiny bubbles into the batter, creating a light and airy cake. Start with room-temperature butter, which still feels cool to the touch, but gives a bit when squeezed. Adequate creaming takes about 3 or 4 minutes, or until the mixture becomes fluffy and the color has changed from pale yellow to almost white.
Once you have these techniques under your belt, you can bake like a pro.
Cupcake liners also have gotten a fresh boost of trendiness. Bright colors and patterns are available, although we've found that patterns work best with a pale-colored batter. Some cups even are stiff enough to hold their shape on a cookie sheet instead of needing the support of a muffin tin.
