Canada Day Eats Part 5 - Happy Canada Day, Cupcake!

While I was baking away mass quantities of cupcakes for another occasion this week, I was able to save some batter from the vanilla cupcakes, colour some of it red, and scoop alternating white and red batter into cupcake liners....voila! Canada Day cupcakes!

Use your favourite vanilla cake recipe (or boxed if that's how you roll), divide your batter in half (I always suck at the half thing so if you end up with a couple of cupcakes all one colour, just roll with it).

To half of the batter, add red food colouring gel (gel won't water down the batter). I used the Wilton brand that I buy at Bulk Barn. You will have to use an alarming amount to keep from getting pink batter but adding a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder will help take the pink edge off.

I use a scoop that fills half of the cupcake liner so I used 1 scoop of white and 1 scoop of red then use a toothpick to swirl the colours together.

Bake according to your recipe's directions.

Here's the recipe  I used:

Vanilla Cake Printable recipe

Preheat oven to 350

Butter and flour the pan(s) of your choice.

Ingredients

In a bowl, combine:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 6 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp salt

Measure out and set aside:

·         3 cups buttermilk

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a bowl with a hand mixer) cream together:

• 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 cups granulated sugar

Add and continue to beat:

• 8 eggs at room temperature (one at a time)
• 8 tsp vanilla

Alternate additions of ½ of the flour with ½ of the buttermilk; this way you start and end with adding the flour mixture.  Mixt well so there are no lumps but not too long, keep a close eye.

When filling your pans, make sure to stop at no more than ¾ full.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 20 to 30 minutes.  This time varies greatly because it does depend on the size(s) of pans you have used.

Remove pans to a rack, cool for 15 minutes, then remove cake from pans to cool completely before icing.

(15 minutes for cupcakes)

Use your favourite icing recipe (or a container of white store bought icing) to ice the cupcakes. If you'd like to swirl the red in, you will need a piping bag, a large star tip, and a some more of the red food colouring gel.

Paint the inside seams of the bag with the colour of gel you want to show on the icing.

Once you have painted the inside seams of the bag, fill the bag with icing and start piping swirls of icing using  a steady, even pressure.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!