The Challenge

Red velvet cupcakes

Additional Requirements

1. Gluten free

2. I only have 6 colors of food coloring

3. Cannot fit in the fridge overnight

4. From 3. Must be frosted in 1 hour or less

The Design

I made red velvet cupcakes for this friend the year before. I made them each a rosette, and they were great. However, I don’t like repeating myself so I needed something else easy. I opted to make a pixel heart container from Zelda, my friend’s favorite game. It would be easy to make, having no complex piping. It required no more than three colors of frosting (I went with 2). It would make her happy.

Here is my sketch of the design:

The final design was changed because I didn’t have black food coloring or the chance to buy any. Therefore, I ended up buying a tube of black icing and just traced the perimeter of the heart. It make the individual cupcakes less attractive but the overall affect was still good.

You will also note that my pixel dots on each cupcake melted into each other. But it was still tasty.

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The Recipe

Makes 29-30 cupcakes, you need 27 for the heart.

Ingredients

Frosting

• 16 oz cream cheese at room temperature
• 8 oz marscapone cold
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs vanilla

Bake

Preheat Oven to 350 F

Line cupcake tins with liners (Need 27-30 ish)

Mix together DRY ingredients with whisk, or sift then stir.

Mix together liquid oil, extracts and food coloring in another bowl

Make buttermilk (If you use the alt, you use exactly 1 cup of heavy cream between the frosting and cake)

With a mixer (paddle attachment), cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy (5 minutes)

Stop frequently to scrape the bowl

Slowly add in the oil mixture with the mixer on low until it is homogeneous.

Turn the mixer up to medium and mix until fluffy again

Add in eggs and yolks one at a time with mixing at medium, add a new egg as soon as the last is incorporated

Turn the mixer back down to low

Mix in 1/3 dry, 1/2 butter milk, 1/3 dry, remaining buttermilk, remaining dry

Scrape the bowl and mix a little bit more

Note: It is much harder to over mix gluten free batter, as there is no gluten to get over worked.

Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling each 2/3 full.

Bake 1 tray at a time for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs.

Let cool a few minutes in pan then transfer to cooling rack

Frosting

Mix room temperature cream cheese until smooth

Add in cream, sugar and marscapone

Mix until smooth

Add in vanilla and any food coloring

mix 1 minute more