of mine to produce some 50 red velvet cupcakes for her mum's 50th birthday party. Now, these are to be made very soon, and most people would have found the perfect tried and tested recipe before promising such things..I however, am not one of those people. Infact I think I'm one of the most disorganised and last minute people I can think of.So, thinking I should probably get my arse in gear, decided that I should find a fool proof recipe for the occasion. Step up Nigella Lawson!
Handily, Nigella had a recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes which I have been dying to try so figured I would give it a go.
Whilst browsing the chillers in my local Asda, I stumbled across a product I'd not seen before - Kerrygold 'lighter' butter. It was hard, sold in a foil wrapper, was unsalted, and £1. Well, why not give it a go.
The ingredients list is a little more extravagant (and possibly a bit more worrying) than proper butter, but it'll be these additions that make it lighter I suppose. But you know what, it was a brilliant find. Not only does it behave and taste exactly like butter, but because it's got oil in, it's slightly softer so doesn't take a whole DAY to get to room temperature to cream into a lovely soft mixture. I'd highly recommend giving this stuff a go if you get the chance.
I'm not going to give the recipe out here because well, it's in the Nigella's 'Kitchen', and the only substitutions I made were live yogurt for buttermilk & blue colouring for red (don't ask me why I chose blue!).
The cake was super moist, but not greasy as many oil based red velvet cakes tend to be. It had just the right hint of cocoa flavour. I wasn't too convinced with the buttery cream cheese frosting that Nigella recommends, so I upped the amount of cream cheese as I didn't think the original packed a cheesy enough punch.
Anyway, they were delicious, and I can always say this was all just 'product development'!
