Skip to main content

Red Velvet Hippo Cupcakes


For months I have been contemplating pastries in hippo form.  This year I had promised my daughter and a cousin who both had summer birthdays that I would make a hippo cake for the family reunion.  Of course, the whole family knew and we have been discussing what it would look like since before Easter.  That being said, I had to nix the whole cake idea a couple of days before the reunion cause I just wasn't going to have enough time to put the cake together the day we left with everything else I had to do and my work schedules.  Instead, I made hippo cupcakes and I must say I think they turned out great!  There are a few things I feel I should mention though...be sure to try the batter.  It seemed way to bright to me and not very "red velvety" in color and when I tried it, all I could taste was red food coloring so I added more cocoa.  Also, don't be disturbed by the color of the batter...as long as it tastes good it will be fine!





Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl.


Add in the butter milk, eggs, oil...


Red food coloring, and vinegar.  I know...interesting look, trust me it gets better!


Mix well and add in vanilla...make sure you taste the batter to ensure the flavors have blended well...


Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.






Spread frosting over the top using an angled spatula.


Using a round pastry tip, pipe on the little snouts.


Use a leaf tip to put on little ears.


Make some eyes and teeth out of candy melts and place on the cupcake. Viola!  Hippos!!


Red Velvet Hippo Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes
Adapted from Paula Dean's recipe

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 Tbsp. red food coloring
1 tsp. white vinegar
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F and prepare cupcake tins.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.  In a separate larger bowl, beat together oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a mixer.  Add in the dry ingredients until smooth and completely combined.

Pour batter into the cupcake pans, filling each until about 2/3 to 3/4 full.  Bake in the oven for 18-22 minutes, turning the pan halfway through so that you don't get any hotspots.  Cool on wire racks completely before frosting.


I frosted with my basic buttercream frosting, tinted pink for the hippos.  Normally you would use cream cheese frosting with red velvet.  It's up to you!

To make the hippos, I frosted the top with an angled spatula and piped on a little snout with a round icing tip.  I used a leaf tip for the ears and I used candy melts and made the eyes and teeth on some waxed paper.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fruit & Nut Granola

I love having granola for breakfast!  I remember always wanting to have some granola whenever we had it in the house as a kid, it seemed like the kind of food grown ups ate, sort of like Grape Nuts only way better! The biggest down fall to granola is the really yummy stuff is sort of expensive, especially if it has lots of fruit and nuts, just the way I like it!  That's fine though, they can keep their expensive granola because this stuff is so simple to make at home! It takes almost no time and the joys of making it yourself is you know exactly what is going into it and you can customize your ingredients depending on your tastes!  Like I said, I love mine with lots of fruit and toasted nuts so I tend to use quite a bit of them in my recipe.  Feel free to adjust this to your tastes and try out different ingredients like coconut and various seeds, nuts and fruits. In a medium bowl combine your oats and sunflower seeds. Roughly chop you...
1 comment
Read more

The cookie that has it all: Double Chocolate Pretzel Peanut Butter Cookies!

So I'm not sure how many of you know how I feel about peanut butter and chocolate but I might have tossed around words like "God's gift to food" or "the most yummiest thing of all time" in the past.  Long story short, if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life you can be assured that peanut butter and chocolate would be main ingredients in my choice.  That is why I was so captivated by these cookies I saw posted over on Picky Palate 's page.  They have chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels...and they are topped with a tiny bit of sea salt, bringing that whole sweet/salty combo that is out of this world!  What more could you possible ask for in one small baked good?  Nothing I tell you!  Well, almost nothing in my opinion.  I am not really a fan of white chocolate so I substituted semi-sweet chips for the ones added in but either way these truly are the cookies that have it all!  For this recipe you are going to need some broken pre...
2 comments
Read more

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls...from scratch!

Tuesdays are our lazy days around our house.  I don't work until the afternoon and my daughter doesn't have school, so it is kind of the day that we sleep in, have a yummy breakfast and get a few things done around the house.  This Tuesday, I decided to make it extra special and make homemade cinnamon rolls...from scratch!  I don't think there is any better breakfast than a delicious hot from the oven cinnamon roll that you made with your very own hands.  Plus, I had some leftover cream cheese frosting that tasted just like Cinnabon's frosting...so yeah, basically best breakfast EVER! lol Our ingredients... Add your milk, oil, and sugar to a saucepan.  Heat over medium heat until just below boiling. Sprinkle on the yeast and allow to sit for a minute. Stir in the 4 cups of flour. Allow to sit covered with a kitchen towel for an hour in a warm place.  then stir in the last 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Place in ...
4 comments
Read more