Red Velvet - Cupcakes and Kisses!

A few weeks ago, my mother had the most amazing red velvet donut from the Donut Hole in Santa Rosa Beach, FL.  This donut made such a buzz around our office, that Mom and I have been wanting to try to make them ever since!  Mom bought a mini-donut pan and all the  necessary ingredients for the batter, and I was to try and duplicate the magical donut.  We found a recipe at Devil-Donuts.com, and decided to go for it after dinner last night.  The final results did not render a perfect red velvet donut, but, rather, a mini-donut pan adventure and some delicious red velvet cupcakes, who knew?!

Red Velvet Kisses and Cupcakes Recipe
(from Devil Donuts)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
2 1/3 cups of cake flour (2 tbsp. cornstarch to just under 1 cup of all purpose flour)
2 tablespoons of Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of buttermilk or 1 tbsp. white vinegar added to 1 cup of milk
1 1/2 tablespoons of red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar

This recipe made such a gorgeous batter! I creamed together the butter and sugar, then added the eggs in one at a time.  I mixed together the flour, cocoa, soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Then, I whisked together the buttermilk, red coloring, vanilla and white vinegar.  I added the dry ingredients into the butter mixture alternately with the wet ingredients - beginning and ending with the dry. 

Now comes the fun part!  For a mini-donut pan, you MUST fill the pan only 2/3 full or you get mushrooms, like this:

They may look funny, but they still taste amazing!

The hubby thought it was pretty hilarious!

I figured out that the best way to fill the pan is with a piping bag, not a spoon - it was much easier to control the amount I added. Once we filled the pan correctly, we got better results:

For the cream cheese frosting, I used my basic recipe:

1 cup Crisco Vegetable Shortening

8oz. softened cream cheese

1 tsp. pure vanilla flavoring

8-10 tsp. milk

3-4 cups powdered sugar

pink of salt.

Simply cream all the ingredients together and add sugar and milk to get the consistency you desire.

I must admit that this is the best red velvet cake I have ever made.  The texture is perfect and the taste is spot-on.  The only thing I may do differently next time is add a little more cocoa to the batter.  The red velvet kisses are going to be perfect for Christmas parties!

Next up - Daring Bakers and Birthday Cake! Happy Baking!