I like red velvet cupcakes, but I don't love them. However, I've learned that many people LOVE them, like really love them. Love affair kind of love. I think they're pretty, and they do taste good, but they're not my favorite. We've already established that carrot cake is my favorite. Even though I don't have a deep, unbreakable love for red velvet cupcakes, I do have a recipe that I always use when I make them because everyone loves it so much. Once again I put Martha to the test to see how her red velvet cupcakes recipe stacks up to the one I often use.
The only real noticeable difference between Martha's recipe and mine was that the one I usually use calls for liquid food coloring and Martha's calls for the gel kind. But, from my Angry Birds cake-making experience I was already stocked with Wilton's red food coloring gel. Other than that the ingredients, and amounts of them, were pretty much exactly the same, with only a minor difference here and there.
My favorite part about red velvet is the color of the cupcake. I think that's what makes it so fun, the bright red. But, I could just be partial to red, it is the color of my car, and I have an awesome pair of red peep-toe pumps. I was a little disappointed to see that with this recipe the cupcakes are closer to a brown or rather a muddy red... maybe even a brick red. That description makes them sound inedible and dirty, which isn't the case. Just that, they didn't turn out as pretty and vibrant as I'm used to when I make red velvet cupcakes. In reality, the most important thing is the taste... and these tasted good. If you don't believe me, you can ask the 12+ co-workers of mine who ate them when I took them to work. I'm usually complemented on whatever baked goody I bring to work, but I was complimented even more so when I brought in the red velvet cupcakes. Like I said... people LOVE them.
