Red velvet cupcakes

Make these for the cream cheese icing - it goes great with these cupcakes, but the cake is really just along for the ride and the icing is divine. 

Adapted from http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/26697/red+velvet+cupcakes

Makes 18-24 cupcakes* 

Cupcake ingredients 

• 300g (2 cups) plain flour 
• 30g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder 
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
• 1 1/2 cups dextrose (I used 1 3/4 cups but would reduce to 1 1/2 cups in future - too sweet) 
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked 
• 250ml (1 cup) buttermilk 
• 200g unsalted butter, melted 
• 1/4 cup rice malt syrup 
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 2 tsp red food colouring (I used 2 tsp Queen's red pillar box food colouring, but this did not result in a very red cake. If you want a redder cupcake, experiment with different brands of food colouring or add lots more. Food colouring is entirely optional of course – there's nothing wrong with chocolate coloured cake – but you can't get away with calling it red velvet if it's not red!) 

Cream cheese icing ingredients

• 250g cream cheese block, at room temperature 
• 3/4 cup dextrose 
• 100g butter, at room temperature 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract Method 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C*. Line at least eighteen 80ml (1/3 cup) capacity muffin pans with paper cases*. 
2. Sift dextrose, flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Whisk the eggs, buttermilk, butter, rice malt syrup, vinegar and vanilla in a large jug until combined. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Add the buttermilk mixture. Stir until just combined. Stir in the food colouring. 
3. Divide the mixture among the lined pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes* or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
4. Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, dextrose, extra butter and extra vanilla until smooth. Spread or pipe over cupcakes. (NOTE: This didn't make quite enough icing to pipe on all 24 cupcakes. I think it piped 20 cupcakes, and spread on 2 more, and 2 cupcakes were un-iced. If I'd eaten less of it as I piped it may have gone a lot further. ;) )

* I made 24 cupcakes, filling the liners half full, or 1.5cm from the top. 
* Oven temperature and cooking times are based on original recipe. I generally need to turn my (non fan-forced oven) up 20°C and increase the cooking time. I baked these in my oven at 190C for 25 min, but 20 min probably would've been enough - dextrose-based cakes seem to need a little less cooking time than sugar-based cakes.