Recipe: Red Velvet Cakes (Cheating method)

I love Red Velvet Cake, the contrast between the bright red cake and the white frosting always looks amazing. And it’s a chocolate flavoured cake so what’s not to love? And the colour is pretty appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Sadly I find making it to be a bit of a pain in the backside. I struggle to balance the ratio of coco powder to food dye, and more often than not I don’t use enough dye. The result is usually a chocolate cake with a vaguely pink tint if you squint a bit.

But Lakeland has come to the rescue, as they now stock Star Kay extracts. These extracts come in a huge range of flavours and include a chocolate flavour. The extracts are quite expensive, but I’m given to believe that they are a very high quality brand so I don’t mind paying so much for them (and Lakeland have them on 3 for 2 at the moment). So armed with this and some red gel food dye I went into battle and made some adorable cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

Check out my shiny new backdrop! Much nicer than my messy kitchen!

Star Kay Chocolate Extract is available here. I’ve also found some Star Key extracts in Tesco so if you have access to a large store I’d suggest looking there. However Tesco will have a fairly limited range of flavours.

Naturally these are topped with cream cheese frosting; the quantities given below should provide enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes. Obviously this is dependent on how you choose to cover the cakes, if you pipe the frosting like I did you’ll probably need more. As for the cakes the usual rules apply, this makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes in a cupcake maker. This recipe can be scaled up to make more and also works in the oven. I’m not sure how well the colour will come out when baked in the oven though.

Now isn't that a fabulous colour?

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
2 teaspoons chocolate extract
Red gel food colouring

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract (to taste)

Decorations (optional)
Red/pink heart shaped sprinkles
Pink edible glitter

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and chocolate extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in a little of the food dye. Gel dyes are highly concentrated so you don’t need much! Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and decorate. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.