Bobby Flay Throwdown Red Velvet Cupcakes and Cream Cheese Icing

"I saw this recipe on the Food Network show Bobby Flay Throwdown. He challenged a lady who has a cupcake store. This is the recipe she uses and says she sells the most of. You want to make these huge. She makes them to feed 2 people. Opening them up and cutting them in half like a regular cake. The icing recipe makes alot,,,but plan to use a heaping scoop on top of the cupcake. Since you cut it in half and eat it with a fork every forkful can dip into the icing. I double the cocoa amount for more flavor. Also,,it calls for 2 tbs of red food coloring, it does make it very red,,but even 1 tbs will make it red enough."
 
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photo by May I Have That Rec photo by May I Have That Rec
photo by May I Have That Rec
photo by Stephanie O. photo by Stephanie O.
photo by trotpup_7572783 photo by trotpup_7572783
photo by alyssacannata photo by alyssacannata
photo by gailanng photo by gailanng
Ready In:
1hr 25mins
Ingredients:
17
Yields:
16 cupcakes
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ingredients

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directions

  • For the cupcakes:

  • Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
  • Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside.
  • In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix oil, sugar, and buttermilk until combined. Add eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time and mix on low, scraping down sides occasionally, and mix until just combined. Be sure not to over mix, or the batter will come out.
  • tough.
  • Line a 16-cup cupcake pan with paper liners, scoop the batter into the liners and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.
  • For the cream cheese frosting:

  • Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until creamed. Gradually add powdered sugar to the mixture and scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and mix until combined.
  • The frosting can be used right away, or stored in the refrigerator up to a week.
  • Frost cooled cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting.

Questions & Replies

  1. Can these be made in the LARGE size cupcake tins? How much longer would they need to bake for?
     
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Reviews

  1. the cream cheese frosting is incredible!! I made a medium-sized 3 layer cake using the same instructions. It was my first cake, and it came out pretty good. The frosting makes a TON so i suggest either halving it or doubling the cupcakes. Also, I hand-mixed the cake batter. It wasn't too difficult, and it made sure that it cake turned out moist and delicious. :)<br/><br/>DEFINITELY up the cocoa to 1/4 cup. <br/><br/>Thanks for the recipe!!!
     
  2. Yummy! I'm not really a fan of red velvet cake, as it seems like they are just a novelty. I was, however, looking for a good vanilla buttermilk cake recipe. Since I wanted to make green cupcakes for St. Patty's, I made this recipe as Green Velvet cupcakes. Wow. I may have to reconsider my opinion of red velvet. These cupcakes were moist and tasty. Kind of sweet and buttery, with a hint of vanilla. They had a coarse-ish crumb, typical of butter based cakes, even though this recipe called for oil. The cocoa powder is sort of moot, as you don't taste it at all. I may try this recipe in the future with more cocoa powder, but as written I thought it was fabulous. Oh, I also only used 2 tsp. food coloring, and it was plenty green. I didn't make the cream cheese frosting. I put a fluffy 7-minute frosting on top. Yum! 3 days later I'm still eating them. They have dried out a bit, but are still tasty. I recommend drinking some hot tea or coffee with them, though, as the sweetness can leave your mouth with a coating. This recipe is definitely a keeper.
     
  3. I made these for some coworkers' birthdays and everyone loved them! I had people coming up to me all day raving on and on about how amazing they were and that they were the best cupcakes they'd ever had. Thanks a lot!
     
  4. I made these in the large oversized cupcake pans...They turned out fabulous!<br/>I used kittencals cream cheese frosting recipe instead of this one as it seemed that this one would have made alot more frosting then I needed...I did up the cocoa powder to 1/4 cup like others did.
     
  5. I am a fairly experienced baker, rarely flopping my bakery items- this one wasn't great. I did use 1/4 cup of cocoa as that is what I have used in the past. These were by far the driest cupcakes I have ever made. It was quite a disappointment. The batter was fluffy and tasted great, however, I cooked as directed, even checked on them at 15 minutes, they definitely needed the 18-20 minutes to bake for regular sized cupcakes. And the icing recipe makes a ton! I like a lot of icing on my cupcakes, I made 2/3 of the recipe and I still have about 2 cups of icing left over (the recipe made 28 regular sized cupcakes for me). The taste is pretty good, but I am definitely disappointed with the dryness of them.
     
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Tweaks

  1. I doubled the recipe and made jumbo cupcakes for a bake sale and they sold out in a hurry. I used cake flour instead of all- purpose, increased to amount of cocoa to 1/4 cup and topped them with gobs of cream cheese frosting. There were lots of happy customers with a sugar high that day. Will use this recipe again and again. Update: I've also made a few 3-layer red velvet cakes using this recipe. My friends now say I make the best red velvet cake in town.
     

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