St Patrick's Day Cupcakes

I'm astonished to see what a big deal St Patrick's Day is here in the US, much more so I think than in the UK, and it doesn't seem to matter how Irish you are. 

Which is good as no one in this household can claim any Irish connection at all (though I suspect, given her surname, that Helen could claim otherwise).  But any excuse for a cupcake, and I'm there.

Having become a recent convert to Red Velvet Cupcakes, I decided to experiment and make Green Velvet Cupcakes in celebration.  For the uninitiated, Red Velvet Cakes use a plain cupcake batter flavoured with a small amount of cocoa and then some red food colouring, to create a deep, rich red, so I thought it wouldn't be too hard to create a Green Velvet version. 

I used this recipe for Red Velvet Cakes and set to work with the green food colouring. The uncooked cake mixture looked absolutely revolting - sort of like thick spinach soup.  Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture as my camera battery had run out.

Interestingly, though extremely un-festively - the cooked cakes ended up mostly a uniform chocolatey brown with the odd spinachy tinge round the edges.   I'm so  glad I'm not going to be serving these cakes to non-family members.

I think the answer next time would be to reduce the amount of cocoa, but then they wouldn't be so deliciously chocolatey.  And to be honest the idea of spinach green cupcakes is somewhat disturbing.

Comments

[Helen]

O'Gorman - but my dad's mother's side is actually far more well known. Go to any pub in Aherloe, Tipperary, and say you're related to FoxyPat O'Brien and you'll be drinking for a week. I can vouch for that personally. Two weeks, and I was still meeting 'cousins' I didn't know I had. Every day is St Patrick's Day in Aherloe if you mention that name. My, the Baileys. And the Irish Coffee. Holy heck. Or, as Auntie Maureen would say, Sweet B'Jesus...