Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Perfect red velvet cupcakes can be hard to find and even more difficult to replicate at home. With a few key ingredients and careful steps, you can easily make these classic red velvet cupcakes in your own kitchen and impress all of your taste testers.

This perfect red velvet cupcake recipe has lived on my site since 2017, and the reviews speak for themselves.

It is reviews like Laura’s that make me so confident you, too, can do this. In this post and recipe, you will find all of my tried and true ingredients, steps, photos, and resources to insure you are never again disappointed in your own skills as a baker or the beautiful cupcakes sitting in front of you that doesn’t also impress you on the inside.

Red velvet cupcakes can be fussy, but they are absolutely doable, even if you’ve never made a single batch of cupcakes from scratch before.

Before I shared recipes with home bakers like you on the internet, I spent several years baking cakes and cupcakes for hire for all sorts of occasions, and I’ve made dozens and dozens of these cupcakes.

If you prepare your ingredients and follow my favorite red velvet cupcake recipe exactly, I can guarantee you’ll be whispering “mmm” between bites of these iconic cupcakes in no time.

CORNSTARCH— I like to use cornstarch in a lot of my cookie recipes to keep them soft. As mentioned, when combined with all-purpose flour in a cake recipe, we can encourage a fluffy cupcake crumb.

UNSWEETENED COCOA POWDER— with only 1 and ½ Tablespoons in the whole batch of (14) cupcakes, no, it does not classify red velvet cupcakes as a chocolate cupcakes, per se. Since cocoa powder is considered an acidic ingredient, it reacts with the baking soda and buttermilk (or vinegar/lemon juice + milk) to create a tight and tender crumb.

SALT— just a bit, because no baked good should ever go without salt.

BAKING SODA— this is our key leavening agent. When combined with acidic ingredients like cocoa powder and buttermilk (or our substitute), it produces carbon dioxide which = lots of bubbles which = cupcakes that rise properly and produce those perfectly domed tops.

UNSALTED BUTTER— butter will bring a buttery flavor to cupcakes, as well as being a source of fat. Believe it or not, when we cream butter and sugar together, we’re also contributing to the “fluff” factor in our cupcakes as the fat traps air during creaming that releases in the oven while the cupcakes bake.

GRANULATED SUGAR— red velvet cupcakes are not a very sweet flavor of cupcake. The cake is actually quite tart and tangy with the perfect amount of sweetness. I typically opt for brown sugar in cookies to bring maximum flavor and moisture, but in order to keep my cupcakes fluffy, we turn to a lighter (as in not as heavy) sugar. We’ll add extra moisture with the next ingredient.

VEGETABLE OIL— I have experimented a lot with using all butter in my red velvet cupcake recipe, and I just can’t quite replicate the same moist crumb that I can when I use a combination of butter and vegetable oil.

EGGS— these will need to be at room temperature and separated. We’ll use the egg whites separately from the yolks to insure a fluffy cupcake.

VANILLA EXTRACT— the garlic of the baking world. Never leave it out!

DISTILLED WHITE VINEGAR— I know, this is a strange ingredient to have in a cupcake recipe, but it is essential for helping to leavening the cupcake batter. In original, old time recipes, red velvet cake was colored with beet juice, which can turn blue when it’s baked. The acid from the vinegar made a chemical reaction with the beet juice to keep it nice and red, and despite modern ingredients and methods, distilled vinegar has stuck around in the list of common ingredients in red velvet cake, thus our red velvet cupcakes.

BUTTERMILK (or VINEGAR/LEMON JUICE + MILK)— believe it or not, even as a regular baker, I just about never have buttermilk on hand. However, buttermilk is crucial to the success of red velvet cake and cupcakes. The good news is, you can make homemade buttermilk easily with distilled white vinegar or lemon juice and regular milk, which is what I always do. See the notes in the recipe for adjusting the amount of distilled white vinegar in this recipe if you do have buttermilk.

RED FOOD COLORING— I prefer to use gel food coloring, but liquid food coloring will work just fine. See recipe notes for my favorite brand.

For the cream cheese frosting, you will need:
• full fat block cream cheese
• room temperature butter
• powdered sugar
• vanilla extract
• salt

It is imperative that your butter, milk/buttermilk, and eggs are at room temperature. It’s important your butter especially is at room temperature and not warmer. Room temperature butter is cooler than most home bakers think it is, so be sure it’s not too soft, otherwise your red velvet cupcakes are sure to be dry.

It’s important to be sure your cream cheese frosting ingredients are also at room temperature so the frosting stays nice and smooth and non-lumpy.

This is not a recipe where we can just dump all of the ingredients together and expect perfect results. As I mentioned, red velvet cupcakes can be finicky, so pay attention and take your time in every step.

Ok, baker. Let’s do this!

Do not skip this step. Sifting dry ingredients removes lumps, combines the dry ingredients in a uniform fashion, and sets you up for a seamless entry of dry ingredients into your wet ingredients.

You’ll sift the flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, then set that mixture aside.

If you have buttermilk, you can skip this step. Be sure you’re using the adjusted amount of additional distilled vinegar in the recipe, as you will still need it, just not as much.

Once creamed, beat in the vegetable oil along with the egg yolks. Remember, room temperature egg yolks are crucial to maintaining the room temperature of the butter to make sure our end result is moist and buttery, not dry and dense.

We’ll also add the vanilla and red food coloring to this base before moving on to incorporating the dry ingredients.

You’ll split your dry ingredients into roughly 3 parts (just eyeball this, it doesn’t have to be perfect) and your buttermilk/vinegar or lemon juice + milk in half (again, eyeball), then, starting with the dry ingredients, alternate adding each to the batter and letting it slowly incorporate.

By adding a bit of the dry ingredients first, we give the liquid somewhere to go and absorb into, so as to keep the batter nice and smooth and avoid flooding it or creating lumps.

This is a step I use in delicate cake and cupcake batters that seems fine to skip but really does yield flawless results.

Again, don’t worry about splitting these into perfect proportions. Trust your eyeballs to guide you.

Once you’ve added the final portion of dry ingredients, stop blending when most of it has incorporated. The batter may not look totally combined, but that’s ok. Our next step will take care of it.

If you’re using an electric hand mixer, just rinse off your beaters and whip the egg whites in a separate bowl.

If you used a stand mixer, your bowl may be occupied with cake batter. No problem!

You can either use an electric hand mixer, if you have one available, another bowl for your stand mixer + the whisk attachment, or use some good old fashioned elbow grease and a whisk to whip the egg whites by hand.

This method of folding will insure your egg whites are kept nice and airy and will decrease the chances of deflating, which we could easily do by vigorously adding the egg whites while the mixer is moving or stirring them in too aggressively.

You’ll know your cupcake batter is ready to bake when it’s silky smooth and slightly thick.

It is crucial not to over bake red velvet cupcakes. I told you it was fussy, didn’t I?

You want to look for moist crumbs on your cake tester but not wet batter. Do not wait for a totally clean/dry tester, as the cupcakes will continue to bake in the cupcake pan when you take them out of the oven.

Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan on a cooling rack before removing to decorate.

First, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Then, slowly add the powdered sugar and beat again. Add the vanilla extract and salt and continue beating until frosting is smooth.

If you need some ideas for cupcake decorating…

Traditionally, red velvet cupcakes are garnished with crumbs, but you’re welcome to embellish them as much or as little as you wish.

Wondering where I get my crumbs? One sacrificial cupcake from the batch will do!

However you decide to decorate them, go ahead and pat yourself on the back. Because you did it! You created perfect red velvet cupcakes. You know how I know you did? Because you read every step and followed the instructions to a T.

It can feel intimidating to get these cupcakes just right, but with careful attention and confidence, you, too, can feel like (and actually be!) an expert red velvet cupcake baker.