Recipe recommendation: Red velvet cupcakes by Sally's baking addiction

I've tried four different red velvet cake recipes over the course of a month (including here, here, here), and this is the best so far so I thought to document it so that I won't forget xp and also for all of you who trust my taste then yep, this recipe is the way to go! I topped mine with a whipped cream based cream cheese frosting this time for a slightly lighter finish but you can also use a buttercream based frosting which will probably be more stable :))

Here's the recipe link for the cupcake base: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/red-velvet-cupcakes/

Recipe notes:

1. I reduced the sugar from 200g to 130g and it was a good level of sweetness for me.

2. Recipe makes 16 cupcakes.

3. I stuffed mine with a nutella custard hehe xp (super easy to make, just add Nutella into a batch of custard (recipe here) or you can also choose to just stuff it with Nutella directly from the jar but it'll make for a sweeter filling which you can offset by having a less sweet frosting)

For the cream cheese whipped cream frosting,

1. Use a paddle attachment to mix together 300g cream cheese and 100g icing sugar.

2. In another large bowl, whip up about 200g heavy whipping cream (I used Rich's Bettercreme which is mildly sweet and super stable).

3. Then fold your whipped cream mixture into your cream cheese mixture until smooth.

This yields a frosting that is quite easy to work with, though a buttercream frosting (recipe here) is still my frosting of choice for more complicated designs or if the cupcakes need to sit out at room temperature for longer than an hour. Alternatively, if you have some buttercream at hand, you can do a hybrid of the two and cream the cream cheese together with about 200g of buttercream first, before folding in the whipped cream and this will give you added stability for piping and a lighter frosting compared to buttercream, though the cream cheese taste will not be as intense. This is especially useful for piping 3D florals which need to be frozen before transferring.

Hope this helps some of you red velvet cake fans out there haha and as usual, happy baking!

Carina xx