Happy Valentine’s Day! I’ll be honest, I am not a massive fan of Valentine’s Day, I think the last time I was excited about it was in school hoping someone would give me a card/flowers (spoiler alert: it never happened). However, I do think I can get excited about v-day food!

I have known for a while that I want to make something for this day, however, I was not sure what. I kept thinking about red velvet cupcakes, but I felt like it was such an obvious thing to do, a bit of a florals for spring situation, but then I thought about how nice it would be to top them with a super smooth white chocolate buttercream! A cupcake topped with white chocolate?! That I can do!

What is red velvet?

I feel like a lot of people hate on red velvet by saying they are just red cupcakes (I am looking my bf right now). However, they are not just that, in addition to the normal base ingredients to make a cupcake and the red food colouring, red velvet also has cocoa powder and it’s presented with a cream cheese icing. Back in the day the red colour was achieved by mixing certain ingredients which would cause a chemical reaction and turn the batter red, thankfully, now we have food colouring to make our lives easier! One of the ingredients used that you can still see in some recipes is vinegar, this is one of the things that used to cause the reaction, however, since we don’t need it anymore, I have decided to avoid it all together.

How about the buttercream?

I know some people may worry about white chocolate as it can at times be slightly temperamental, however, this recipe is completely bulletproof and it will give you the softest, creamiest white chocolate buttercream you’ve ever had. All you need to make it is butter, melted white chocolate, milk, icing sugar and vanilla extract.

A few tips for success

• Use gel food colouring rather than liquid one: this may sound stupid, but I had to re-do these cupcakes as the liquid food colouring made them brown rather than red.
• Allow your cupcakes to fully cool down before icing them, otherwise the buttercream will melt and it will be a big mess!
• Make sure you melt the white chocolate at low temperature: you can melt it in a double simmer or in the microwave, just make sure it’s not too hot and you stir it frequently.
• When preparing the buttercream, make sure your ingredients are at room temperature: if your milk or butter are cold they may solidify the white chocolate and your buttercream won’t be creamy.

Red Velvet White Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients (makes 14-16 cupcakes):

For the cupcakes:

• 120 ml of vegetable oil
• 200 gr of sugar
• 120 ml of milk
• 155 gr of greek yoghurt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
• 2 tsp and 1/2 of red food colouring
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 260 gr of flour
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

White chocolate buttercream:

• 90 gr of white chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
• 150 gr of icing (powdered) sugar*
• 114 gr of butter at room temperature
• 1-2 tbsp of whole milk
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 170 degrees celsius.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and milk and mix until combined. Then, add in the yoghurt and vanilla extract and mix again. Continue by adding the eggs and whisking them in.
3. Add in the red food colouring and finally the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and cocoa powder). I mixed my dry ingredients with a hand mixer to make sure they incorporated properly. Set aside.
4. Line your cupcake tray with cases and using an ice cream scoop or simply a spoon split the batter evenly into the prepared cupcake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and the cupcakes spring back when pressed. Take out of the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.
5. While they are cooling down, melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double simmer at a medium to low temperature and stirring regularly. Set aside to slightly cool down for 5 minutes.
6. In a bowl mix together the melted white chocolate, butter, milk, vanilla extract and sugar until you get a very creamy buttercream.
7. Transfer the icing to a piping bag fit with a large star tip and frost the cooled cupcakes. Top with sprinkles or leave plain. Enjoy!

* This amount of sugar is perfect for me, however, I tend to find buttercream too sweet; if you like it sweeter, add the amount stated and try it, if it’s not sweet enough, slowly add extra sugar until you get the desired taste.