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Red Velvet Cupcakes
The Best Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting. All of the tips and tricks for making perfect red velvet cupcakes every single time!
It’s Christmas Eve and I am trying to sneak in one last post on Modern Honey and it has to be perfect red velvet cupcakes. This is such a classic Southern recipe that is crazy popular!
I have shared my Red Velvet Cake Recipe and it has actually climbed to be one of the most popular recipes on Modern Honey. I tested and re-tested so many red velvet cake recipes to ultimately create this recipe! I went up a pants size just for you! So much cake! But it was well worth it because now we have a killer red velvet cupcake recipe that everyone will love!
The key with red velvet cupcakes is to have a touch of chocolate flavor. It needs to be enough to notice it but not enough to make it taste like a full-blown chocolate cake. I found the sweet spot by using 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder.
I also found that a combination of butter and oil makes the moistest, most tender, and flavorful cake. Butter adds the flavor and the oil makes it extra moist.
Buttermilk is such a game changer in baked goods! I love to have it in my arsenal (aka my refrigerator) at all times. The beauty of it is that it is low in fat but does similar things in baking as heavy cream. It is one of my favorite ingredients to use in my cakes.
How to make the Best Red Velvet Cupcakes:
- Start by mixing the dry ingredients together. This is an important step to make sure to get all of the clumps out so give it a good stir.
- In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, and red food coloring.
- Beat the butter and sugar together for 4 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the oil and cream for 2 more minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat for 2 minutes longer.
- Add 1/2 of the dry ingredients and 1/2 of the buttermilk mixture, mixing after each addition until it is all added.
- Drop the batter into cupcake liners and bake until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean. Don’t OVERBAKE. No dry cupcakes here!
- Make a cream cheese frosting by whipping together butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Make sure the cream cheese is softened so it easily combines.
Here are my favorite cupcake baking tools — 12-cup cupcake pan, rainbow cupcake liners, and a stainless steel cake tester.
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Red Velvet Cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
Red Velvet Cupcakes:
- 1 1/2 cups Flour (may use all-purpose or cake flour)
- 3 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 2/3 cup Buttermilk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons White Vinegar
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- 1 teaspoon Red Gel Food Coloring (if using liquid red food coloring, you may want to add more)
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter (softened)
- 1/4 cup Oil
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 large Eggs
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 1/2 cup Butter (softened)
- 8 ounces Cream Cheese (softened)
- 3 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together.
- In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, and red food coloring.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together for 4 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the oil and cream for 2 more minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat for 2 minutes longer. Add vanilla.
- Add 1/2 of the dry ingredients and 1/2 of the buttermilk mixture, mixing after each addition until it is all added.
- Drop the batter into cupcake liners and bake until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean, about 16-19 minutes. Don't OVERBAKE. Let cool.
- In a bowl, whip together butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Spread all over the cooled cupcakes.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I hope you love these homemade red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! Happy Baking, my friends!
made this twice but always turn out pink velvet and weird for me how it taste.. not chocolatey and no rich flavor ..
The flavor is pretty good. I saw remarks about being bitter, the cream cheese and buttermilk are for that purpose, making it a little “sour”. I was a little distressed with the vague instructions though and the recipe makes way more that 12 cupcakes ( more like 24, which I found in the comments, AFTER they were in the oven.) unless you’re making jumbo, and I felt it was an expensive ingredient list to have the tops of my cupcakes look so bad because they were overfilled. Not to be unappreciative though because thank you for sharing, but try to be more specific with directions.
Tried and tested, this recipe makes a good moist cupcake. It tastes good, just wondering what made it a little bit bitter. But the overall taste was awesome. Thanks for the recipe. Also, I had to add more food colouring (I used powder) to achieve the red colour I wanted.
How can I make buttermilk by 2/3? ????
1 cup of milk mixed with1 table spoon of vinegar. And let it sit
A very delicious recipe! I messed up, I added a whole cup of butter rather than half. It was still delicious but very rich and fattyalso, my cupcakes were not red. I am not sure as to why. I used the gel food coloring in the little tube. Was that right?
Lastly, what is the recommendation for how to store these properly when frosted?
Mine weren’t red. 🙁 Maybe because I used gel coloring from the little tube.
Can anyone else think of why?
Also, I accidentally used a whole cup of butter. 🙁 They turned out fine but we’re really fatty and rich. Still delicious. I’ll have to try it again.
Yum! These were so good! I messed up and totally forgot the oil, but they still came out moist and delicious.
I can vouch for this Recipe, absolutely delicious!
I have even used the same recipe to make an entire cake!
My only advice, don’t shy on the colouring!
Just tried this recipe and when I first tasted it coming out of the oven, I thought it was light and fluffy. Maybe a little too salty and greasy (the liners were almost dripping in grease when I popped them out of the pan). Granted that I forgot to add vanilla, it didn’t taste bad—although the cocoa wasn’t too obvious. However , I was hoping for a denser and more moist cupcake.
After leaving it to for a couple of hours to cool completely, I tasted it again, and it was sooo much better. I could barely taste the salt, the cocoa was more pronounced and the greasiness came together. It was less fluffy and more moist. My advice is to let it sit until all the flavors settle before serving/tasting.
I made these for my neighbor’s birthday. I used a standard muffin tin and had way more batter than for just 12 cupcakes. I made 1 1/2 dozen and really could have made 24. They were really moist and taste great but they didn’t rise like a normal cupcake. The batter spread over the edges of the tins. I thought I over mixed them, so made another batch the next morning and it wasn’t much better. So, I am wondering if the recipe should have had baking powder in addition to the baking soda or if I just over filled the tins. I didn’t get the nice rounded tops you normally get when making cupcakes.