Red Velvet Cupcakes With A Tad Less Guilt

Pin It To follow my attempt at a Southern-inspired baked chicken, my attempt at another Southern classic.  The ubiquitous red velvet cupcake.  My recipe of choice was Ina Garten's because I looooved her coconut cupcakes.  However, some revisions to the red velvet cupcakes in an attempt to reduce the guilt on these treats.  Even if these are lower fat cupcakes, they're still a lot better than some of those store-bought (for $2 each!) nuclear red cupcakes that are not velvety at all.

I ran out of red food color, so I just had pinkish brown cupcakes!

But they really weren't too red at all when I originally tried this recipe.

I replaced half the butter with unsweetened applesauce in the cupcake batter.  The original recipe called for half a cup of unsalted butter, but I only used a quarter cup.  So I replaced the rest with a quarter cup of applesauce.  My husband certainly didn't notice any difference in texture and didn't know I did anything different with it until I told him.  It was just as moist.  Also, I just used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder and the taste was just fine.  Another important change was the baking time.  My cupcakes were done between 15 and 17 minutes.  Ina calls for 25 to 30 minutes, which would totally dry out the cupcakes.  I've made these cupcakes before following the original recipe and I did have to cut the baking time down so I know using the applesauce didn't affect the baking time.  I'm still puzzled why the original recipe called for such a long baking time.  Another note, because the applesauce has natural sweetness, I suppose the sugar can be cut by a quarter cup.

For the frosting, I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter, but I only used about a cup of unsifted confectioner's sugar (Just because it was easier for me to measure, and then sift).  I'm quite sure this would still be much less than what she used.  I like to taste the cheese in my cream cheese frosting and not have it too sweet.

About using applesauce to replace fat in baking, I've also tried this on my Go-To Loaf Recipe and it was just fine.  I've also replaced the oil in brownie mix with not much change in texture or moisture.  I do taste a slight hint of the apple flavor in the brownies, but it's not too big a deal.  However, I can imagine that applesauce may not be appropriate for cookies as it would be too soupy for cookie batter.