Monday, January 31, 2011

Joy of Cooking Red Velvet Cake

While living in El Paso with my boyfriend, we actually live with his brother and SIL(sister-in-law). We both really like food and to be in the kitchen. The first week of living here she told me one of her good friend’s birthday was coming up and she wanted to bake him a red velvet cake. I’ve never made a red velvet cake before but I accepted the offer. Little did I know, I was actually going to do the whole thing . I figured it be fun and something new I could learn from! In the end, it was actually pretty simple to bake and put together! You start off by using a buttermilk layer cake recipe and to make it red velvet you incorporate the food coloring and cocoa powder.

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The cake was incredibly moist. Red velvet, in my opinion, is over-rated and I never really understood what the hype was about but this cake was delicious. Without trying any other recipe, I would simply just use this recipe again because I know it will be a good cake. I think red velvet is a popular cake because it is known for cream cheese frosting! I whipped up the Joy of Cooking cream cheese frosting and sprinkled coconut on top. You could also add pecans and extra cake crumbs for decoration.

Red Velvet Cake Adapted from Joy of Cooking

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups AP flour, sifted (they used cake flour)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

1-3  tablespoons red food coloring

Shredded coconut

Direction

Preheat  the oven to 350 degrees F. Have all ingredients at room temperature, about 70 degree F. Grease and flour two 9 x 2- inch or 8 x 2-inch round cake pans or line the bottoms with wax or parchment paper.

Whisk together until thoroughly blended flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.

Beat the butter in a large bowl until creamy. Gradually add and beat the sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Whisk together eggs, then gradually beat in vanilla, taking about 2 minutes.

Beating at a low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with buttermilk/red food coloring. After adding the first part of buttermilk, add in your red food coloring.

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Beat the batter until smooth and scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Divide the batter between the pans and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes in 9-inch pans, 30-35 minutes in 8-inch pans. Let cake cool in pans on top of cooling rack for 20-30 minutes or until you can easily handle the cake with your hands. Invert cakes to peel off paper if used and let cool completely on cooking racks.

Once completely cooled fill and frost cake with cream cheese frosting. Recipe below. Then decorate by sprinkling with shredded coconut. You could also add any leftover cake crumbs if you had to level the layers and/or toasted pecans! I used my cake crumbs to sample the cake with frosting. Yum yum!

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Cream Cheese Frosting Adapted from Joy of Cooking

Ingredients

8 ounces cold cream cheese
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

Direction

Beat in a medium bowl at low speed just until blended the cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Add one-third confectioners' sugar at a time and beat just until smooth and the desired consistency. If the frosting is too stiff, beat for a few seconds longer, do not over beat.

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With Valentine’s Day around the corner, this pretty cake would be perfect to share with someone special or with yourself and an awesome chick flick!

Always,

Fallon     

4 comments:

jared said...

looks yummy. im going to make this. dumb questions though, whats AP flour?

Fallon said...

AP flour= All-Purpose flour

Anonymous said...

Your blog is so cute! Im so making this for Valentine's day :)

Fallon said...

Thank you and welcome!