Giant Red Velvet Cupcake

My sister commissioned me with making the cake for my niece, Audrey, when she was about to turn 2 this month.  I had toyed with the idea of making a giant cupcake using this Wilton pan.  What more could delight a toddler for a birthday cake?  The cake pan comes with a recipe for a chocolate pound cake, but some comments online confirmed my suspicions that it was dense and not tasty.  So I found a red velvet recipe another blogger had made using the pan.

Would I recommend the pan?  Nope.  Cute as it is, there are a few issues.  You can't use just any cake recipe because the batter might not be enough to fill the pan with.  The top portion of the cake bakes faster than the bottom.  The outside of the cake could be done before the inside finishes baking because it's tall.  You should really frost or fill the bottom of the cake also, unless your cake is ultra-moist.  And since it's so tall, it won't fit in most cake domes or containers.  But if the sight of a cute giant cupcake seizes you with impulse to go buy the pan, you've got company.

Audrey with her mom, my twin sis

Decorating was also more difficult than I'd anticipated.  And I had little time to devote to it, since a certain little person thought I was her personal toy.  She would command me, too: "Come on!  Lai!"  Bossy, but it was too funny.  Here I went with a chocolate frosting on bottom adorned with candy sprinkles, and piped regular cream cheese frosting on top.  It looked like a mess, unfortunately.  And there wasn't enough frosting.  So on my second try, which you can see in the photo at the top of this post, I adapted a different decorating technique: Keep it simple, stupid.

Luckily for me, 2-year-olds are not as discerning when it comes to design, and Audrey loved this cake.  She ate bite after bite, and ran over to Grandpa so he could sneak her some extra cake.  The second time I made enough frosting, and filled the bottom for a better frosting-to-cake ratio.  I like the larger-than-normal portion of cocoa, and I used Guittard for an intense cocoa flavor.  It ends up tasting a little more chocolaty than red velvet usually does.

If anybody has used this particular pan (and not the silicone ones), I would be grateful for any other recommended recipes or tips.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I made these for our summer intern's goodbye party, as a tribute to her southern roots. Paula Deen's recipe looked popular online, but I took note of comments about the recipe being too oily and the funny undertaste of food coloring and made adjustments. Actually, the latter adjustment was involuntary -- I had only a half-bottle of red food coloring, about half a tablespoon (a quarter of what the recipe called for), and the batter still came out scarlet, like a pretty nail polish, as you can see here.

It effectively tastes like yellow cake, and I used my own cream cheese frosting recipe, which goes on all my carrot cakes and pumpkin squares. They made a great first impression on my coworkers, but some of them asked, "What's in them?" Doesn't everyone know what red velvet cake is? A couple even wrinkled their faces and walked off when I joked, "red food coloring," but they generally got great reviews.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES (Adapted from Paula Deen's)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, well-shaken

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 tbs red food coloring

1 tsp white distilled vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl, lightly beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Fill the cupcake tins about 2/3 full, and bake 20 to 22 minutes. Turn the pans around halfway through baking. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the cream cheese and butter together on high, and then mix in the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract on low. Frost cupcakes with an offset spatula or piping bag fitted with a star tip. Or snip the corner off a Ziploc bag to make a makeshift piping bag.