Copycat Sprinkles Red Velvet Cupcakes

Copycat Sprinkles Red Velvet Cupcakes - made September 6, 2014 from Cooking Classy

Remember when I said I bought a red velvet cupcake from Sprinkles so I could compare it to a copycat recipe I was making later the same day? Well, this is the recipe and above is one of the cupcakes I made from it. No, don't get excited that I made an exact copycat of it. At first glance what might make it appear to be exactly like Sprinkles is the iconic dot on top. Uh, that's actually from the Sprinkles cupcake I bought earlier. See, told you it was iconic.

Since I never eat the dot, I thought I'd briefly re-use it for picture taking. It made the copycat cupcake so Sprinkles-looking that I almost got my pictures mixed up when I downloaded them from my camera, wondering which one was real and which was the copycat. Fortunately I had accidentally gotten a couple of - haha - sprinkles of powdered sugar on the dot when I was making the copycat recipe so I was able to figure out which picture was of which.

Dot notwithstanding, I don't know if I would consider this a true copycat of Sprinkles' red velvet cupcake. Maybe because I'd had both cupcakes within a couple of hours of each other so my taste buds were already primed but I think I could tell them apart in a blind taste taste. The taste of the copycat recipe was good but the texture was a bit more dense than the Sprinkles red velvet and it wasn't as moist. I don't think I overbaked it as it wasn't dry. It just wasn't as moist as Sprinkles. And this seemed to have a tad bit more flavor  than Sprinkles. Oh and the frosting isn't like Sprinkles either. I'm convinced Sprinkles' frosting is a plain vanilla frosting rather than a cream cheese frosting. Which is another reason I prefer Sprinkles since I don't normally like cream cheese frostings that much.

One recipe makes twelve cupcakes and I ended up taking the eleven I didn't eat to church the next day to give to the kids in Sunday School. Since I wasn't going to give them a recycled Sprinkles dot, I went with my own sprinkles. And I thought they were quite pretty if I do immodestly say so myself.

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter, firm but not cold
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon red food coloring
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup salted butter or 1/2 cup unsalted butter plus 1/8 teaspoon salt
6 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda, set aside. In a separate large mixing bowl, with an electric hand mixer on medium speed, whip together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. 
3. Add in eggs one at a time stirring after each addition. Add red food coloring and vanilla extract and mix until combine. In a small mixing bowl (or in the measuring cup you used to measure milk), combine milk and 1 tsp vinegar.
4. Add milk mixture and flour mixture to cupcake mixture, alternating in two separate batches, mixing until combine after each addition. Divide batter evenly among 15 paper lined muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full. 
5. Bake in preheated oven 18-21 minutes until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool about 2 minutes in muffin tin, then transfer to wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to an airtight container to cool completely (this just helps them retain more moisture). Once cooled completely, spread generously with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1. In a large mixing bowl, using and electric mixer, whip together butter and cream cheese until pale and fluffy (about 1 minute on high speed, then 3-4 minutes on medium high speed). Mix in vanilla extract. 
2. Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. If doing optional infamous Sprinkles Cupcakes dot on top then scoop out a few tablespoons frosting into two separate bowls and tint with food coloring (lots of red in the one and barely any blue in the other). Spread a small circle of red on top followed by a small light blue, use a toothpick to spread if needed (it helped me get a more circular shape around the edges with its finer point).