Red Velvet Strawberry Cupcakes

Valentines is around the corner. The thing about being married is that though you want to surprise your  spouse with some thoughtful gesture on Valentines, but you never get around doing it as the kids, work, household  duties prioritise. The Valentine day arrives. You sheepishly smile and wish your spouse and tell each other that we do not need gifts to make each other feel special and go about the day avoiding all who will frown upon you on not  creating a big hullabaloo over this day.

Its not that you dont want to show a good time to your spouse, its just that the propoganda of this day makes every effort seem small unless you have spent the day as ‘defined’ by the western world. That needs to include  champagne, red roses, chocolates, cakes, expensive gifts, candle light dinners, etc.

Well, I made some early valentine gift for my husband and kids who enjoyed and devoured the cupcakes before I could finish saying ‘Happy Valentines in advance to y…

My husband has taken this lovely photo and insisted I share the recipe. The batter of cupcakes takes exactly 15-20 minutes to make and the baking will take another 10-15 minutes.

Here are the ingredients to make about 15-16 cupcakes :

Eggs                        :  2

Castor Sugar         : 1/2 cup

Oil                           : 1/2 cup

Plain Flour             : 3/4 cup

Baking powder     : 1/2 tsp

Strawberry Crush : 1 tablespoon

Vanilla essence     : 1 tsp

Butterscotch essence : few drops

Red colour              : few drops

The batter demands an electric beater. If you do not have that then good old muscle of arms is good enough, but it will take about 7-8 minutes longer. It goes without saying that to make cupcakes you need a muffin mould and muffin cups to hold the muffins. If there are no muffin cups, you may simply spray the muffin tray with oil and bake. If you do not have a muffin tray, you may bake this as a regular cake.  The batter is good to go for both.

Beat the eggs and sugar together till they are pale and sugar is completely dissolved. Slowly pour in oil, both the essence, red colour and strawberry crush. Give a quick mix. At this point pre heat your oven at 180 degrees and  keep heating till you put the muffin tray inside.  Sieve through plain flour and baking powder. Fold gently.  Speed is critical here as the baking powder once hits the liquid it starts acting so now the batter should quickly be transfered to the oven. Fill up the moulds 2/3rds and place them in the oven for 10- 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

Each oven with even of the same brand and make works at a different heat levels. So keep the temperature at 170 degrees if your oven gets too hot. Check the muffins with a toothpick ( I use a bamboo skewer as they are long and skinny) If it comes out clean, take the tray out. If not then keep the muffins for 5 more minutes and check again.

You may enjoy the muffins warm or you can cool them completely and put little vanilla icing on top and convert them to cupcakes.. Here is the recipe for icing.

Cream : 75 ml

Icing Sugar : 1/4 cup

Vanilla essence : few drops.

Beat all the ingredients till the cream forms soft peaks. Spread some icing on top of muffins and decorate with some freshly sliced strawberrys. The combination of vanilla and strawberry is amazingly perfect and a small topping of fresh tart strawberry will cut through the sweetness of cupcakes and makes them delicious.

Do try baking these cupcakes for your Valentine and you shall see that no amount of expensive gifts and dinner dates can bring that smile on your Valentines face as your home baked sweet cupcakes. Albeit a few pieces of jewellery can also a go along way in making me smile (That’s a clue for my husband

Happy Valentines to all.