Our Favourite Valentine’s Day Recipes – Rose Red Velvet Cupcakes

Giving someone a cupcake (or two!) on Valentine’s Day is a sweet, romantic gesture, especially if you’ve made them yourself. The unique thing about these lovely Rose Red Velvet cupcakes is the rose tea infused butter, which adds another subtle flavour to this simple recipe. Decoration can be as simple or as fancy as you like – you could even serve them up with a single red rose – how romantic!

• 2 cups plain flour
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 ½ cups castor sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
• 200g tea infused butter, melted (see recipe for this below)
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked
• 1tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1tbsp red food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line 18, 80ml (1/3 cup) capacity muffin pans with paper cases.
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Stir through the sugar.
3. Whisk the buttermilk, tea infused melted butter, eggs, vinegar and vanilla in a large jug until combined.
4. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Add the buttermilk mixture. Stir until just combined. Stir in the food colouring.
5. Divide the mixture among the lined pans.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Tea infused butter:

• 280g unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp Dilmah Exceptional Rose with French Vanilla tea

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan until just liquid.
2. Add the tea leaves and continue heating the mixture for 5 minutes over very low heat.
3. Remove the butter from the heat and let the mixture stand for another 5 minutes.
4. Strain out the tea leaves by pouring the liquid butter through a sieve into a bowl.
5. Press the tea into the sieve with spoon on order to squeeze out the butter it has absorbed.

**there is a certain amount of butter that will be lost as it will stick to the tea leaves. One cup of butter will yield closer to 3/4 cup of butter. The recipe takes this into consideration, so only add 200g of tea infused melted butter to the cupcake mixture.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• Have the cream cheese cold and butter at room temperature.
• In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and rosewater until blended. Add sugar one-third at a time and beat just until smooth and the desired consistency. Do not overbeat.
• When the cupcakes are cold, pipe the cream crease frosting on top or use an ice-cream scoop to dollop the frosting on the stunning red-domed cupcakes.

Check out Dilmah’s range of other delicious teas, which are great to use as infusions in cooking or to drink everyday.

Mr Gift has a great range of kitchen utensils and gadgets that make perfect gifts for conscientious cooks and budding bakers.