This dish is named after the karahi, a flat, open pot that is popular in Indian and Pakistani cuisine. This recipe can be prepared in any pot, despite its name. This recipe was developed by my mother; it’s easy to follow and dependable, if a tad hot (by Pakistani standards).
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 30 |
| Yield: | 30 cupcakes |
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- ½ cup milk
- 1 (1 ounce) bottle McCormick® Red Food Color
- 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 (16 ounce) box confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 30 muffin cups with paper liners.
- Make cake: Mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
- Beat sugar and butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended; do not overbeat. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from the pans; cool completely.
- While cupcakes are cooling, make frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla extract in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth.
- Spread or pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 277 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 38 g |
| Cholesterol | 58 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 174 mg |
| Sugars | 28 g |
| Fat | 13 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I work in a nursing home and I make cupcakes for my residents for their birthdays and one of them asked for red velvet cake. I made them and she said they were the best red velvet cake she had ever had. This will be the recipe I use from now on when making red velvet cake or cupcakes.
Super easy and delightfully tasty. I didn’t have any cream cheese so I just did a chocolate frosting on them.
I love the taste of this recipe but it is a bit dry. After adding a tbsp of veg oil and a tbsp of vinegar and half a cup extra flour, it is so much better! I also use it to make cakes as well as cupcakes.
Ive used this recipe for a while and its a friend favorite. i even modify it for other cupcake flavors(plain chocolate, vanilla, even a pineapple upside down) Though I just want to know how long to bake it if i were to use this recipe to make a whole cake
The best freaking cupcakes! I didn’t add sour cream to the frosting, and it tasted so perfect. I also barely mixed the batter, maybe 2 min. These cupcakes were so moist and the icing didn’t fall or drip when piping it on!
They are awesome!
Excellent love it just like the recipe Awesome
Love it
The consistency of the cupcakes were good but the flavor was really lacking. The frosting was good but a little runny and needed extra powdered sugar to thicken it up. They were ok but didn’t have the red velvet flavor, just a lightly sweetened cake.
I chose this recipe because I wanted a red velvet cake without the nasty flour frosting, I “brewed” the cocoa before mixing it into the batter, and… wow. This might be the best cake I’ve ever made. I heated the 1/2 cup milk in the microwave for 2, 30-second bursts, then stirred in the cocoa and let it sit while I followed the remaining instructions word-for-word. I wanted a cake, not cupcakes, so I divided the batter between two 9-inch rounds and baked at 350F for 45 minutes. I’m at about 4000ft altitude, for what it’s worth. I haven’t tasted the completed cake yet, but one lick of the batter was enough to convince me I’d done something right. If you’re looking for a red velvet cake recipe that’s moist and flavorful, give this one a try.
I made these for a colleague’s birthday and they tasted so horrible I couldn’t get myself to bring them to the office. I followed the recipe exactly to ensure I would be able to leave the most accurate review, and I mixed the batter very gently to avoid overmixing. The cake itself is almost flavorless. The cocoa is mild like a classic red velvet, but there is nothing to cut through it or add any extra pizzaz other than the icing, which is far too sweet given the amount of confectioner’s sugar. The sour cream adds some decent moisture, but as a nontraditional ingredient for red velvet, it doesn’t add much of anything other than that. The use of regular flour also totally threw this cake off, making the cake almost chewy in consistency. These cupcakes ended up being overly dense, flavorless, and relied far too much on a just-OK cream cheese frosting. Use the New York Times red velvet recipe instead.
This is my go to sweet treat for any gathering, it is always a fan favorite. Best cupcake recipe I’ve ever tried.
I made these for my brothers birthday and he loved them. They turned out great!
I loved them there were light and fluffy easy to make they are not overly sweet and the cream cheese frosting is to die for! This is my go to red velvet cupcake recipe. YUMMY!
Delicious!
Let me start by stating that red velvet is good but not one of my favorites, so I truly never made it before. I tried this recipe and it was meh/ok based on comparisons to red velvet cupcakes I have eaten in the past. The taste and texture just weren’t quite right….So, I began my intense research and learned a lot in my quest for the best red velvet cupcake recipe: Red velvet must be made with cake flour, have buttermilk, vinegar, butter and oil in the batter in order to have the best texture as well as taste as it should – imho. No sour cream. No over beating the batter, need to barely beat it in fact. Red velvet cupcakes do better made with baking powder, not baking soda (not mandatory but baking powder gives the cupcake a slight dome shape, not flat like with baking soda). I also learned that this recipe calls for a bit too much cocoa. I found a perfect recipe elsewhere. My cupcakes made with the recipe from another site came out moist, delicate and velvety as they should be – perfection!! I will never need another red velvet recipe in my life now. I am sure this one is good enough but I am a crazy perfectionist when it comes to baking. It’s just a hobby for me but I can’t serve things that don’t meet my ridiculously high standards in taste. Oh, the frosting here is good for a heavier cream cheese frosting. I found a lighter one , on this site, that pairs better with my delicate cupcakes. One more thing… I baked mine at 335° and that was the perfect temperature!
This is our favorite cupcake recipe! We omit the red dye so we call them “brown velvet” cupcakes 😉 I can’t speak to the icing for the recipe because we have a favorite whipped cream recipe that we found on this site, but the cupcakes are top notch! My hubby who doesn’t even like chocolate loves these cupcakes! Definitely fills 30.
Very good flavor and moist the frosting was nice too
Great recipe. Definitely needs some more information regarding storage! Ya’ll please don’t forget to refrigerate your cupcakes! If you don’t like cold cakes, take them out about 45 minutes before serving. The frosting was a bit too runny for me. I added 2 tbsp of cornstarch to mine, and it thickened to just the right consistency. Mangia!
It tasted fine but needs more sugar. It requires too much food coloring because of the amount of cocoa being added and I don’t like the sour cream it would be better with butter milk.
These turned out all right. Not exactly how I’ld want them but still. Not red. I used a pot of red gel and I used a lot and the batter still didn’t turn out red like the picture. I later bought a bottle of super concentrate red liquid (for icing) which might have made a difference because it was powerful stuff. Dry. Not sure why…lots of eggs, sour cream. This should have been more moist. Taste – no complaints here. Tasted chocolatey. Don’t skimp and buy the cheap cocoa powder. I used Fry’s I will try a different recipe next time just to see.