Fold in the Flour ...

I know I posted a few Valentine's recipes a few weeks ago, but there was one more I wanted to try. These Red Velvet Cupcakes were inspired by the success of my Blue Velvet version a few weeks back, and by a decorating idea for 'sweetheart' cutouts I found on the wonderful blog by Audra, the Baker Chick.   I used the recipe from the Blue Velvet version, although obviously changed the food colouring used.  I first tried Wilton's Red Red (1 1/2 tspns) but this seemed a bit orangy, so I added some Sugarflair Poppy Red (1 tspn) and a small dab of Wilton Violet to deepen the colour. I think it worked really well.This means that my US Cake Flour  also made another appearance. I can't tell you how pleased I am at how they have turned out. They are incredibly tender and the cream cheese frosting is fast becoming my favourite of the moment. Using a Wilton 1M icing tip, I couldn't believe how easy it was to create this lovely rose swirl effect (piping...

It's probably not often that football and baking go hand in hand, but as my beloved Bluebirds are returning to Wembley for the fourth time in as many years (and it'd be nice to actually win for a change), I thought it was about time I tried out something I'd been thinking of for a while. I've never tried a Red Velvet cake, but I had thought about adapting a recipe to make a Blue Velvet version. Instead, I found a fantastic recipe courtesy of Heather Baird of  Sprinkle Bakes . It is notoriously difficult to get a good colour with a Red Velvet cake, and similarly with blue -  I certainly was not able to replicate the deep denim blue Heather managed (at least on this attempt - I'll try a dash more violet next time). I also had the opportunity to use for the first time the US Swan's Down Cake Flour I sourced from The Stateside Candy Co.  (A lot of US recipes call for Cake Flour which is very finely ground (think 'oo' flour), enriched and bleached - ...