Black Velvet Cupcakes

You've all heard of red velvet cupcakes, but have you ever heard of black velvet? If Darth Vader were trying to convince you to come to the dark side, he'd be holding a tray of these. Made from a mixture of Equagold Black and Dutch Processed Cocoa, the darkness of these cupcakes is achieved without any food colouring! This recipe is taken from my aunt Jane's blog (Jane's Kitchen) with permission.

Black Velvet Cupcakes
Yield: 36 regular sized cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups plain flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup Equagold Black Dutch Cocoa
• 1/3 cup Dutch Process Cocoa 
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp fine salt 
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or Greek yoghurt)
• 1 1/2 cups coffee (brewed and cold)
• 3/4 cup oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients and sift.
3. In a mixer bowl, combine all wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, oil, coffee, vanilla paste). Using the paddle attachment, beat ingredients until well combined at slow speed for about a minute.
4. Add in all of the sifted dry ingredients and beat at medium speed until well combined and no traces of dry ingredients for about 3 minutes.
5. Transfer and divide mixture into cupcake liners set on muffin tin pans.
6. Bake for 18 minutes or until cake springs back when touched. It's a moist cake and inserting a toothpick or cake tester is not advised.
7. Cool on a cake wire rack until ready for icing. When the cupcakes are completely cool, ice as desired. 

Vanilla Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

• 100 grams butter, softened (we used Whitestone unsalted butter)
• 250 grams cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped off
• Zest of 1 mandarin

Method:

1. In a mixer using the paddle attachment, cream the butter, cream cheese, mandarin zest and vanilla seeds until smooth.
2. Add in icing sugar and continue mixing until fluffy and light for about 5 minutes on medium speed

For toppings:

• For this cupcake, we garnished the top with mini chocolate chips and freeze dried raspberry powder.

My aunt Jane has a blog of her own where she posts food-finds, recipes and articles! You can find her recipe index here, of which my favourites are the Red Velvet Crinkles, Momofuku-inspired Corn Cookies, and the Savoury Cheese Cookies.

Make sure you comment down below if you give these cupcakes a go, they are mighty delicious!