Red Velvet Layer Cake

Week 44

This weeks host was Janet. She choose Red Velvet Layer Cake. Recipe on page 291 of our book. I choose the cream cheese icing. Recipe on page 510 of our book.

I waited until Wednesday to bake my cake only because my husband had a meeting tonight and I thought it would be great to send the cake with him for everyone to eat. The only thing was I had to wait till he came home to eat a piece. :( 

As I was reading through the recipe it stumped me to find out that Red Velvet cake is nothing more then a mild chocolate cake with red food coloring. REALLY!!? Something so sophisticated as "Red Velvet" is just plain old food coloring. I can't lie it was a little disappointing. None the less I was still gonna bake it.

The recipe went fairly smoothly. When it came time to mix the food coloring in with the cocoa I used every last drop in the house. Didn't realize the recipe called for two tablespoons of food coloring. HOLY CRAP! Anyway it was half of the runny stuff and half of the pasty, in a tub, stuff. I was just shy of two tablespoons but didn't think that would make a difference. Although, I think the pasty food coloring made my mixture a little dry...

I ended up adding a touch of water to clean it out while adding it to the rest of the cake mixture. It ended up making no difference in taste or look after it was baked but...

it did give the batter a few lumps. I am assuming it was because my food coloring/cocoa paste was a bit to thick to combine smoothly into the cake batter.

The cake was cut and served tonight. Everybody loved it! My husband was barely able to keep a piece for me. Lucky me I just finished it. I enjoyed it more then expected. The cream cheese icing gave it a nice flavor and the cake itself was moist, fluffy, yet simple in taste.

If your interested in this elegant but not so elegant cake click HERE.

A Tip & A Question:

Easy cake decorating: take a small spoon and press into icing, turn spoon while lifting up.

1. Salad bowl spinner works well to cover your cake if a cake platter and lid or not available.
2.  Why do all the recipes want the eggs, etc. at room temperature before mixing together.