Well hello, stranger
And fellow bakers, cooks, chefs and foodies!
I have been craving red velvet cake for some time now. 
If you're a first-time baker or just a busy human being, box mix cakes are your friend. I tend to change the ingredients a bit, just to make it more fluffy or tasty. You can spice up a box mix cake simply by adding an extra egg or two, changing the oil to baking margarine, adding a flavoured essence, piping condensed milk in the cupcakes or adding chocolate to them! So as much as I don't want to use them, they are convenient.
What you'll need
As I mentioned, I bought a box mix just to make the process easier for myself. The dry ingredients are therefore unknown to me. You'll need to follow the instructions, but you can change a few things to make it more "homemade". The box calls for sunflower oil, which I changed out for baking margarine. I also added two eggs instead of one.
You'll need your box mix, bowls, measuring cups and a happy spirit! As you can see the box mix I bought came with cake mix, icing mix, cups and sprinkles.
The baking begins!
1 - As per instructions, I started by adding the wet ingredients into the bowl. I added two eggs instead of one and replaced the 125ml of oil with melted baking margarine.
2 - Mix mix mix! It's always satisfying to mix butter and eggs, it looks like a potion of some sort.
3 - Add the cake mix to the wet ingredients and watch the white cake mix turn into a dark ruby red! A child will believe in magic when they see this.
4 - Mix to batter until it's silky smooth.
5 - And of course, you can be making I cake if you don't eat a bit of the batter. Well, I can for that matter!
6 - Now that the mix is ready, place the cupcake liners into the tray. The box mix I bought was said to make 12 cupcakes, I believe I could make more if I didn't eat so much of the batter 😅.
7 - Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners. Make sure to fill them evenly, but don't overfill them, you don't want them to overfill once they start rising.
8- Now we can place them in the preheated oven for around 20 to 30 minutes. I preheated the oven to 180 celsius (356 Fahrenheit).
9 - While the cupcakes are baking, move on to the icing.
10 - Whisk 100 grams of baking margarine until it is smooth and glossy.
11 - Add the soft baking margarine to the icing sugar.
12 - Mix these until the mixture looks like wet sand.
13 - Add 30 ml of cold milk to the mixture. I'm not sure why this is necessary, but I've been told it helps to make the icing smooth.
13 - Just for fun I added rose water to my icing mixture. I felt it was fitting since I did make red velvet cupcakes. You can add other flavoured essences as well to "spice" up your icing.
14 - Mix the icing until smooth, but try not to over-mix it, it needs to be fluffy.
15 - Time for the decorations! I'm no expert in the piping category 😅. I can bake but that is where my skills end. Nevertheless, I still enjoy making a mess trying to make them look half-decent.
16 - My final icing attempt. No, they will never win a price, but they do taste delicious and that is all that matters! I know a lot of people who struggle with piping will smear the icing with a butter knife, this is an easy way to save yourself from the struggle and the mess. Don't forget to add your sprinkles!
17 - Finally I was able to satisfy my craving for red velvet cake! I like to enjoy cupcakes with a nice hot cup of coffee. While this was not "the real deal" it was delicious and perfect in its own way!
