These Red Velvet Muffins are utterly delicious and light and are topped with a cream cheese frosting.
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Red Velvet Muffins
Okay, so I have a confession. I am not a massive fan of red velvet! I know, it’s shocking, I don’t know why but it has just never been a flavour I loved. My boyfriend, on the other hand, is obsessed with red velvet and it was he who requested these muffins.
I only have one other red velvet recipe on my blog, and it is a Halloween recipe for my Bloody Glass Cupcakes. So, I used this as a starting point for these muffins.
Related Recipes
Strawberry and White Chocolate Muffins
If you prefer you can just make vanilla-flavoured muffins and add in red food colouring. A traditional red velvet cake is made using cocoa powder, vinegar, buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda.
Whenever I make a muffin recipe, I always start by mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in separate bowls before combining them. I just find that it makes a much lighter and moister muffin.
White Chocolate Chips
I added white chocolate chips to these muffins but it is completely optional. These muffins are super yummy without the chocolate chips, but I love the extra sweetness they add and the contrast of the red muffin with the white chocolate chips.
Food Colouring
The main part of a red velvet muffin is of course the redness of the muffin. For this, you need to use good quality food colouring. I have used quite a lot of different brands of food colouring and I have whittled it down to two different brands. Both give you a lovely and vibrant red colour in the muffins. Sugarflair Red Extra and Progel Red, would be perfect for these muffins.
Sugarflair Red Extra is a maximum concentration food colouring, so it works perfectly against the cocoa powder in this recipe.
Progel Red Food Colouring is also a highly concentrated food colouring and can dye the cocoa powder in this recipe red too.
With a red velvet recipe, you want to have a bright and vibrant muffin. The only food colouring I wouldn’t recommend is a supermarket own brand. These are normally not strong enough to dye your red velvet muffins a bright vibrant red colour.
Tulip Muffin Cases
Something else I love to use when I make muffins is these tulip muffin cases. I just think that they make the muffins look super pretty, they are also pretty deep, so you get a lovely, tall and thick muffin.
Cream Cheese Frosting
There is only one type of frosting that is the perfect fit for a red velvet muffin and that is cream cheese frosting.
I have used this cream cheese frosting on a few of my muffin recipes, including my blueberry muffins and carrot cake muffins.
Cream cheese frosting can be a little runnier compared with the standard American buttercream. This is simply because cream cheese in the UK does contain a lot of water. The recipe for the frosting uses the same amount of unsalted butter and icing sugar and then double the amount of cream cheese.
To make this frosting you need to use unsalted butter. This is super important because the cream cheese is so soft, that we need something to help firm the frosting up so we can pipe it onto the muffins.
Alternatives
The white chocolate chips are completely optional. You could also switch them out for milk or dark chocolate chips.
You can switch the cream cheese frosting out for buttercream or leave it off completely.
Equipment
Sugarflair Red Extra Food Colouring
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Red Velvet Muffins
Ingredients
For the Red Velvet Muffins
- 150 ml Vegetable Oil
- 300 ml Buttermilk
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1 tsp White Wine Vinegar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Red Food Colouring
- 225 g Plain Flour
- 175 g Caster Sugar
- 25 g Cocoa Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 200 g White Chocolate Chips
For the Cream Cheese Frosting
- 100 g Unsalted Butter
- 100 g Icing Sugar
- 200 g Full-Fat Soft Cream Cheese
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
To Make the Red Velvet Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan. Line a muffin tray with your muffin liners and leave them to one side.
- Add the oil, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, vanilla extract and red food colouring to a large bowl or jug and whisk until they are completely combined. Leave to one side.
- In a separate bowl add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix until fully combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until the mixture is smooth and combined.
- Fold through the chocolate chips until they are evenly distributed.
- Split the mixture between your 12 muffin liners.
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Once they have baked leave them to cool fully in the muffin tray.
To Make the Cream Cheese Frosting
- Add the butter and sugar to a large bowl and beat until it becomes thick and creamy.
- Add in the cream cheese and beat again. It will look like the mixture has curdled and split but keep beating and it will come together.
To Decorate
- Add the cream cheese frosting to your piping bag and pipe it onto the top of your cooled muffins. Finish by adding a fresh blueberry on top.
Notes
- These Red Velvet Muffins will last in the fridge for up to 3+ days.
