Vegan Red Velvet Cupcake

After a short break I'm posting this Vegan Red Velvet Cupcake. Red velvet cake quiet popular during festive seasons. The bright red color topped with luscious cream cheese frosting perfect for all occasions especially Valentines Day! After my Vegan Blueberry Cupcake, I attempt to do comparison between vegetarian cakes and non vegetarian cakes. My experiment starts with Red Velvet Cupcakes. Eventhough the texture between this cakes are different, but in terms of taste, both are similar. Source of this recipe adapted from Madhurams Eggless Cooking with slight modification. This website one of the best source of eggless cooking so far. Heartiest thanks to Madhurams!
Red velvet cake has few core ingredients which cannot be substitute with any. In example Buttermilk, Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder, Vinegar and baking soda. Dutch Processed cocoa powder treated with alkali to neutralize its acids.  At first I thought Unsweetened Cocoa Powder and Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder is the same. When read through Stephanie Jaworski's explaination in her recipes, I tend to find this in local bakeries and supermarkets. Unfortunately, could'nt  find any. Therefore I made substitution by adding 3 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder with a pinch of baking soda. Buttermilk ideal for baking fluffier cakes. Buttermilk contains high acid content. Therefore we need to reduce the baking soda to 1/2 tsp less. In this recipe Baking soda used with Cider at the final step before baking.

Ingredients :

Cupcakes

• 1 Cup Buttermilk
• 1 1/4 Cup All purpose flour
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 2 tbsp Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder
• 1/3 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1 tbsp Red Food Coloring
• 2 tsp Vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp Baking soda
• 1 tsp White Distilled Vinegar

Frosting

• 8 oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup Icing sugar
• 160 ml cold heavy whipping cream (35-40% butterfat)

Baking Method:

Preheat oven to 175 degree C and line muffin tins with paper cups.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar and cocoa powder. Keep aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, red food color and oil. Whisk to well combine.
Make a well in a dry ingredients. Then pour the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients stirring slowly to well combine. Make sure don't over beat the batter.
Finally, add vinegar to the 1/4 tsp soda , allowing to fizz and quickly fold into the batter.
Fill the muffin cups to 3/4 full and bake till tooth pick inserted came out clean.

Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cool the cakes in a wire rack for 30 minutes at least. In a bowl, cream the cheese until smooth. Then add icing sugar and vanilla extracts. Continue to beat until smooth texture. Keep the bowl with the mixer together in a chiller for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, remove from the chiller. Now add the cold heavy whipping cream to the cream cheese mixture and beat till the frosting thick enough to pipe.

bottom view of the cupcake

top view of the cupcake

Yield 12 cupcakes