Red Velvet Cupcakes - Life with Holly

Preheat the oven to 170 ºC (325ºF).
Prepare your cupcake wrappers in the baking tin.
Make your buttermilk (if required). Add the milk to a jug and then add half a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Allow it to stand for at least 5 minutes before using.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and sugar and mix until light and fluffy. If you don't have a stand mixer you could use a handheld mixer.
Crack the eggs into a separate cup or jug and add them to the bowl, one at a time. Make sure the eggs are well mixed in.
Add the vanilla extract, food colouring and cocoa powder.
Add half of the flour to the bowl and incorporate well, and then half of the buttermilk and mix well. Add the vinegar.
Add the rest of the flour and buttermilk and make sure it's all mixed in, but take care not to overmix or your cupcakes will become tough.
Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the mixture into the cupcake cases. This recipe will give you 15 deep-filled red velvet cupcakes but you could get up to 18 if you filled the cases a little bit less.
Put the cupcake tray in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Our cupcakes needed 25 minutes as they were quite deep.
When firm to the touch and you can insert a toothpick into the cupcakes and it comes out clean, the cupcakes are ready. Allow to cool in the tin slightly, before taking them out and putting them on a wire rack to cool completely before you decorate (or the frosting will melt into the cupcakes and make a right mess).

In the bowl of a freestanding mixer, sift the icing sugar and add the butter. Beat until well combined. You might want to cover your mixer with a tea towel if it doesn't have a lid to stop it throwing icing sugar all over!
Stir in the cream cheese. Beat for about 5 minutes on medium-high speed until the frosting is nice, light and smooth. Be careful not to overmix or the frosting could split and go runny.

Put the Jem 2D piping nozzle in a piping bag, and snip off the end. Fill the piping bag with cream cheese frosting.
Pipe a swirl of frosting onto each cupcake. I like to imagine the cupcake is a clock face. Starting in the middle, I pipe from the centre down to 6 o'clock and then round anticlockwise, working my way into the centre of the cupcake with a spiral.
Add sprinkles, and voila! The easiest Valentine's Day cupcakes ever are finished.