RVC = Red Velvet Cake

When this cake came up as the next cake to be made for Cake Slice Bakers I was not... happy.  Yes I am one of THOSE people.  I loathe today's RVC.  I am one of THOSE people that can taste the chemical flavoring of the red dye.  But I am one of THOSE people that really wants to be a team player so we make the RVC!!  Even though there will be some tweaking.  No. not tweeting, I am not one of THOSE people.

This month we are making the Red Velvet Cake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting.  I have read here and there about the origins of the RVC, about the red being the result of a reaction between vinegar, buttermilk and the cocoa used.  Another way of making the cake reddish was by using beets and or beet juice in the cake.  I am not trying to completely change this recipe so I discarded the idea of causing a reaction, instead I wanted to use beets to achieve the color.  I really had no desire to make a beet cake either.  I simply did not want to use the food coloring so I decided I would swap out the food coloring for beet juice.

I started off by pureeing a small can of sliced beets.  Poured them into a strainer and let them sit to get as much of the juice out of the puree.

I then put the juice into a sauce pan and simmered it for about 10 minutes until it reduced down to a syrup.

Set it off to cool and moved to making the cake.

Start by preparing your cake pans.  I choose to use two rounds.  It is quite helpful to line the bottom of your cake pans with parchment.  Remember making paper snowflakes?  Yep, you got it, like that! But without the frilly cuts.

Once you have your circles cut you need to butter the pan and it is helpful for removal later to butter the cake side of the parchment too.  Using your empty butter wrapper go to town on the pans.

Now open up your circle, place it in your pan and rub it down.  Grab an edge and turn it over, there you have both sides buttered. *wink*

Sift together your dry ingredients and set aside.

Next cream together your butter and sugar until it is fluffy.  While it is fluffing, crack your eggs into a bowl and in an other bowl mix together the oil, vanilla and your coloring.  I added in the beet juice - about 2 tablespoons.  Once you achieve fluff slowly add your oil mixture then your eggs one at a time.

Well it is slightly pink.  Yep that is it - with all the extra work and I get slightly pink.  Oh well let's proceed and see how it turns out.

On a low speed add in the dry ingredients and buttermilk, alternating between the two until all is incorporated.

A side note... I was given a scrapper paddle.

It is a love - hate relationship! I love that I don't have to stop and scrape down the sides as often but I hate the mess it makes!  It kicks out huge amounts of stuff when you turn on the mixer - at the lowest speed even.  Plus the scrapper edge gets gunked up so you do have to scrape off that part pretty often.

Verdict is still out on this tool...

Yes that messy!

Alrighty then!  All mixed and poured into your pans, ready for the oven.  Looking brown not pink or even red-ish.

Cooked the cakes to 200 degree internal temperature but was not real happy with the slight dark edge on the top - easily gotten rid of thankfully because this just became a birthday cake for my cousin.

Let the layers cool and got busy on the frosting.  This was a pretty straight forward frosting, fluff, sweeten and flavor.  It came out quite tasty and not overly sweet.  I made a double batch because I decided to split the layers.

Started off by leveling the layer. Using a sharp bread knife just slice off the bump.  Try to avoid any downward pressure, if you press down it will get wonky.

Put a small blob of frosting on your cake plate before placing your first layer.  This will help your keep your cake from sliding around.

Many years ago I was taught an easy way to split a layer is with floss.  You read that correctly, dental floss.  Just be sure it isn't flavored!  Take a long piece of floss, wrap it around the layer, make sure it is in the middle all the way around. Now holding both ends in one hand and steadying the cake with the other hand, pull the floss right through the cake.

Brush the loose crumbs off of the cake and place your first layer onto the cake plate and give it a nice coating of frosting.

Repeat with the rest of the layers.

Red Velvet Cake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting

can be found in the cookbook Vintage Cakes.

This cake turned out well even if it lacked the red color.  It was very moist and not overly sweet.  Try it!

Happy Birthday to my cousin Heather!!

Sorry for the not great slice pic - it was a quicky shot and then gone.

Enjoy!

Visit the other Cake Slice Bakers here.

:)

The Classic

Cake Slice Baker time!
This month from the Vintage Cakes cookbook we got to choose from Banana Cake with Coffee Walnut Buttercream and The Classic.  I choose the Classic with the Fudge Frosting.
The Classic is described as ~ An all-American birthday cake! The sunny yellow layers, surrounded by rich fudge frosting will sweeten any special day.

I have to admit that while doing my mise en place for this recipe I kept thinking - my gosh there are way too many ingredients for a simple classic cake but let's try it!

Preheat your oven.

Prepare your pans... I am making cupcakes with this one. 

Sift together your dry, measure out your wet, crack your eggs and get your butter sugar creaming.  

A tip for you , especially when using a stand mixer, crack your eggs into a measuring cup with a pour spout. It is much easier to pour them into the mixing bowl when it is running.  You will find that each egg will pour in as an individual so the "add one egg at a time" is not difficult at all.

Butter and sugar creamed, oil and vanilla streamed in, and eggs mixed in one at a time.  Time to mix in your wet and dry ingredients alternating between the two.

When whipping cream use a large, chilled bowl along with a large whisk.  Tilt the bowl several times during the whisking.  These key pieces to the whipping puzzle will make for a quick job.

Fold in your lovingly beaten whisked cream.  Be gentle and the lightness of your cake will be your reward.

A three-tablespoon size scoop works well for filling a standard cupcake with minimal mess.

I baked the cupcakes for 21 minutes with a swap/rotate halfway through the bake.  As you can see my 1939 oven has a bit of an evenness issue.  We will be seeking therapy for it soon.

I would have to say this is not the optimum recipe for cupcakes as it did not bake up with a nice dome but rather flat and spread out.  Which resulted in a few cupcakes becoming tasting volunteers.

Onto the frosting.  Heat your cream and sugar until it just starts to simmer.  Pour over the chocolate and let sit for a few minutes.

Whisk the mixture until it is well mixed and the chocolate is completely melted.  Place the bowl on a rack to allow for even cooling.  

For a nice airy frosting, place the cooled mixture into your mixer with the whisk attachment and whisk on medium for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

  

This frosting is a breeze to work with making it one of my favorites - you can't go wrong with ganache!

I decided to fancy up these cupcakes since I was taking to to a get together.  First I made some curls.  I only made a few because they weren't being team players.

So I moved onto piping free form squiggles.  Much easier.

Let those set for a few and then slid a off set spatula under them and they came right off the wax paper.  Simply laid the decorations on top of the frosting and poof! In-sto-pres-to fancischmany!

The Classic can be found in the cookbook Vintage Cakes.


*My side notes... in the original recipe for the frosting it calls for the bowl to be covered after pouring the heated cream over the chocolate.  I would not advise this because of the condensation that will occur on the covering and may get into your mixture.

I got pretty good reviews on these cupcakes.  The cake was light and airy.  The most common complaint was overall a bit too sweet.  Maybe if the frosting did not have the sugar in it or used a bittersweet chocolate instead.
I find it interesting to have made this recipe this month since I have been reading up on high ratio cakes.  A good bite (pun-ish) of information on high ratio cakes can be found at Joe Pastry.

Enjoy!

Visit the other Cake Slice Bakers here.

:)

Shoo-Fly Cake...

I recently joined a group called The Cake Slice.  A cake cookbook is chosen then each month a recipe is voted on and the group all make the decided on cake.  What a great way to try out new recipes and to meet new bakers!

The cookbook that we will be working through is Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson .  And the first cake that we are baking is the Shoo-Fly Cake.  You like Grandma's kitchen and warm gingerbread?  You will enjoy this cake... for dessert or with coffee in the morning.

I love that the recipes give weights for the ingredients! Folks get yourselves a scale and weigh your stuff - it is the best way to insure consistent yummy results.

Let's get going with the topping.  Butter, flour and brown sugar is not a bad way to start off!

Now the recipe says to use your fingers to get the topping to a crumb.  Well I have fingers nails and that just isn't a pretty mess so in my house we use a pastry cutter.  Quite the handy tool - try it for mashed potatoes sometime. Once crumbled put the mixture into the fridge for some chill time.... then remember that you haven't turned the oven on to preheat and do that.

I also don't do much sifting.  I use a whisk for the dry ingredients first then move onto the wet. Did I mention weigh your ingredients?!

Whisk together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.  At this point I realized that I had actually drank the coffee that I need for the cake and take a break to make a new cup. Gives the oven more time to heat up. ; )

So for the next part of the recipe we whisk together all the gooeyness!  Melted butter, molasses eggs, sugar and vanilla. The sugar likes to clump up so be sure to show it some gentle muscle.

  

Time to make it all work together.... coffee, gooey, flour, coffee, gooey, flour.  Scrape and whisk.

Pour into a buttered pan and sprinkle the topping all over.  Time to get baked!

The Shoo-Fly Cake Recipe can be found in the cookbook Vintage Cakes.

A couple of side notes....

I used a 9" square pan.  The recipe calls for a 9" round pan.  Neither of these pans is big enough for this recipe.  Due to the small pan size my cake did not bake evenly.  When all was said and done it was yummy served with a dollop of whipped cream but I will remake this cake and use a more appropriate sized pan.

Visit the other Cake Slice Bakers here.

:)