few drops of Red food colourpreferably the gel paste kind, they don’t dilute the batter
1 batch of your favourite frosting
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Prepare a 12-muffin pan with cupcake liners.
In a bowl, sift all the dry ingredients – flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, add the vinegar to milk and leave it aside for 5 minutes. Once the milk is curdled (buttermilk is ready), combine oil, vanilla & food colour to it and whisk well.
Add the wet ingredients into dry and mix until combined. Make sure you don’t over-mix it – as soon as the baking soda and acid in buttermilk meet, they start working their magic by creating bubbles which we don’t want to lose even before the cupcakes are in the oven!
Scoop the mix into cupcake liners not more than two-thirds of the way (these rise a lot in the oven).
Bake the cupcakes for around 18-20 minutes at 160°C. A skewer inserted will come out clean, the cupcakes will be shiny and springy to touch. Cool them for about 5 minutes in the pan and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Frosting
Frosting – Prepare your piping bag with your choice of a nozzle (I used Wilton 1M) and paint lines of red food colouring inside the bag with the help of a toothpick. Add your frosting (I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream) and pipe them onto cooled cupcakes.