Ingredients
Method
For the Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 350℉ and line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners (this recipe makes 10 cupcakes when you fill the liners almost to the top with batter but it will make 12 cupcakes if filled ¾ of the way! I like to fill mine well so that I can get larger cupcakes.)
- In a small bowl, add the room temperature whole milk along with the vinegar. Give this a good mix and let that sit for 5-10 minutes. This will give you a perfect substitute for buttermilk, however, you can use buttermilk if you would prefer! If you are using buttermilk, make sure to measure it out to 121mL.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients (including the sugar) until well combined. Set this bowl aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients (including the whole milk/vinegar mixture) and whisk well.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Always remember to never over-mix the batter!!
- Next, carefully pour the cupcake batter into each cupcake liner. Again, I like to fill mine until there is just a little part of the cupcake liner sticking out which is why this recipe technically makes 10 cupcakes. Feel free to fill your cupcake liners ¾ of the way to get 12 cupcakes out of this recipe.
- Place the cupcakes in the oven at 350℉ for 18-20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of each cupcake comes out with just a couple of crumbs on it. A couple of crumbs means that they're fully baked but still moist!*The baking time will vary depending on your oven!
- After baking, allow the cupcakes to rest in their pan for 5 minutes before carefully taking them out of the pan and placing them on a cooling rack.
- Allow the cupcakes to fully cool before adding the cream cheese frosting!
For the Cream Cheese Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (you can also use an electric hand mixer), whip the room temperature butter on medium speed until pale in color and silky smooth in texture.
- Add a pinch of fine salt and vanilla extract to taste and mix until combined.
- Next, add in the softened cream cheese and continue mixing on medium speed until everything is combined. Scrape the bowl down using a rubber spatula to ensure everything is well incorporated.
- Add the powdered sugar, begin mixing on low speed for about 1 minute, and then increase the speed to medium for another 4-5 minutes. Stop the mixer once you have reached a smooth consistency.
Decorating
- For an added decoration, I like to take one cupcake, crumble it up, and then sprinkle those crumbles on top of each cupcake! This step is totally optional but I wanted to mention that here before you decorate all of your cupcakes just in case you would like to save one for this step.
- Once the cupcakes have fully cooled, place an Atecto 809 piping tip into a piping bag and add the cream cheese frosting.
- Pipe the frosting on top of each cupcake using circular motions.
- Sprinkle the red velvet cupcake crumbs on top of the cream cheese frosting to finish!