Red Velvet Mini Cupcakes

I've been looking for a recipe to make Red Velvet cake for awhile and I found one on Bakerella's website which sounded fantastic. I decided over the weekend I want to make mini cupcakes for my baby boy's party next month so I used this cake recipe and converted the cooking time to suit cupcakes. (makes over 50 so halve the recipe if you don't need that many cupcakes)

2 & 1/2 cups of plain flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
1 & 1/2 cups of vegetable or canola oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
60 mls red food colouring (I used a 50ml bottle and it was sufficient)

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 & 1/2 packages of Philadelphia cream cheese
60g of butter
4-5 cups of sifted pure icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line mini cupcake trays with cupcake liners.
Place all the sifted dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really well with a wire whisk.
Place eggs into a separate bowl and stir lightly with a wire whisk, add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together until blended.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for approximately 1 minute or until completely combined.
Pour batter into cupcake liners (need to do several rounds of cupcakes) and bake each tray for 10 minutes, insert a toothpick to ensure it comes out clean. If not, cook for a little longer.
Cool on a wire rack and then make the frosting.

Bring butter and cream cheese to room temperature.
Beat butter and cream cheese at a medium speed until creamy.
Sift icing sugar into a bowl and then add to the mixer bowl until combined.
Add vanilla extract until combined, 2-4 minutes is ideal.

Apply the frosting to the cupcakes, I used a piping bag as the cupcakes are so small so it looks nicer.

Result - Delicious!! The cupcakes look fantastic and taste so good, very moist and the frosting is just divine. I am so tempted to make them for the party however not sure the red colouring in the cake is ideal for children - but they are just so beautiful I'm not sure I'll be able to resist. In regards to the colouring, the recipe called for 60mls and I used 50mls and the cakes were a vibrant red so I would imagine you could use 30-40mls and get away with it.

Source - Bakerella - http://www.bakerella.com/