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Red vel­vet, while syn­ony­mous with Valen­tines Day and now pop­u­lar for wed­dings, is just plain gor­geous to look at.  To be totally hon­est, red is my absolute favourite colour and any chance I get to wear it, look at it or eat it I do.  Not that many red foods around when you think about it… and I don’t really eat very much red meat.

Sooo let’s get busy and make some deli­cious red vel­vet cook­ies to be enjoyed and shared all year around.  But wait, just think how cute they would be for Christ­mas or Valentine’s Day as well!

This recipe calls for Dutch Processed Choco­late.   So what’s the dif­fer­ence between that and reg­u­lar unsweet­ened cocoa pow­der you ask?   First off, Both types of cocoa pow­der are unsweet­ened and there­fore bit­ter when tasted alone.

Ok, on to our recipe:

Ingre­di­ents:

3 1/4 cups (355 grams) all pur­pose flour
1/4 cup (75 grams) unsweet­ened Dutch processed cocoa pow­der
1/2 tea­spoon salt
1 tea­spoon (4 grams) bak­ing pow­der
1 cup (227 grams) unsalted but­ter, room tem­per­a­ture
1 3/4 cups (350 grams) gran­u­lated white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tea­spoons pure vanilla extract
3 Table­spoons of Red Food Col­or­ing.. I used the gel type

For Red Vel­vet Cookies:

1. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa pow­der, salt, and bak­ing powder.

2. In the bowl of your elec­tric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the but­ter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 min­utes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beat­ing well after each addi­tion. Add the vanilla extract and the food col­or­ing then beat until combined.

Add the flour mix­ture and beat until you have a smooth dough.

3. Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plas­tic wrap. Refrig­er­ate for about one hour or until firm enough toroll.

4. Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in the cen­ter of the oven. Line two bak­ing sheets with parch­ment paper.

5.    Remove one half of the chilled dough from the refrig­er­a­tor and, on a lightly floured sur­face, roll out the dough to a thick­ness of 1/4 inch (1 cm). (Keep turn­ing the dough as you roll, mak­ing sure the dough does not stick to the counter.) Cut out desired

shapes using a lightly floured cookie cut­ter and trans­fer cook­iesto the pre­pared bak­ing sheet. Place the bak­ing sheets with the unbaked cook­ies in the refrig­er­a­tor for 10 to 15 min­utes to chill the dough which pre­vents the cook­ies from spread­ing and los­ing their shape while baking.

Note: If you are not going to frost the baked cook­ies, you may want to sprin­kle the unbaked cook­ies with crys­tal or sparkling sugar.

Bake cook­ies for about 10 — 12 min­utes (depend­ing on size) or until they are firm around the edges. Remove from oven and let cook­ies cool on bak­ing sheet for a few min­utes before trans­fer­ring to a wire rack to fin­ish cool­ing. Frost with royal icing, if desired. Be sure that the frost­ing on the cook­ies dries com­pletely before stor­ing. (This may take sev­eral hours.) Frosted cook­ies will keep sev­eral days in an airtight

con­tainer. Store between lay­ers of parch­ment paper or wax paper.

Makes about 36 — 4 inch (10 cm) cookies.

BEST frosted with a cream cheese frost­ing.  I use the recipe on my site here and thin it with some milk to make it more like a glaze if I don’t want heavy frost­ing.  Also, I have rolled out fon­dant into the same shape as the cookie and placed it on top of a thin layer of the frost­ing which gives a nice finish!

For a final fin­ish on my fon­dant cov­ered cook­ies I used an impres­sion mat to make pretty pat­terns.. and then dusted with pearl dust.. there is no limit to what you can do with these or any other cook­ies!  Happy Baking!

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I love bak­ing for oth­ers so of course Valentine’s Day pro­vides ample oppor­tu­nity.  I’m get­ting an early start by mak­ing these deli­cious red vel­vet cup­cakes for my friends.  Hubby has three to take to work for the guys and I will take the rest with me.

These lit­tle beau­ties have a hid­den gooey cream cheese frost­ing cen­ter and are also topped with more and then rolled in sparkly red sugar just for fun.

I had to try this recipe out.  It’s not mine it’s from my friend over at Art of Dessert who has per­fected it!

Red Vel­vet Cake
1 1/2 cups but­ter, soft­ened to room tem­per­a­ture
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups vanilla yogurt
1 ounce red food col­or­ing (liq­uid or gel)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups flour
3 Tbs. cocoa pow­der
2 tsp. bak­ing pow­der
1 1/2 tsp. bak­ing soda
3/4 tsp. salt

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8-inch or 9-inch cake pans or line three muf­fin pans with cup­cake liners.

In a large mix­ing bowl, cream but­ter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Com­bine yogurt, red food col­or­ing and vanilla extract in a small bowl. Sift together flour, cocoa pow­der, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda and salt in another bowl. Alter­nate adding the yogurt mix­ture and flour mix­ture into the large bowl. Pour bat­ter into pre­pared pans or lined muf­fin pans. Bake for 30–35 min­utes (15–20 min­utes for cup­cakes) or until a tooth­pick inserted in the cen­ter of the cake comes out clean. Cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

With the mixer on a low speed, beat the cream cheese and but­ter till blended. Mix in vanilla and lemon extracts. Slowly add the pow­dered sugar, a cup at a time. Once all the pow­dered sugar is added, increase to a higher speed to whip up the frost­ing till light and fluffy.

Recipe by Art of Dessert