Food: Red Velvet Cake

By now you've probably noticed how much of an opportunist I am when it comes to making holiday inspired baked goods, but things got a little crazy this St. Paddy's and I don't have time to bake any treats so I thought I'd take it back a couple months and share a cake recipe for everyone's new fav, red velvet.

My boyfriend and I had been talking about making a cake completely from scratch and we finally decided to hash out a red velvet cake. I wasn't entirely pleased with the actual cake (it was very dense and didn't have much flavor) but the frosting was TO DIE FOR. You should definitely make a double batch as suggested in the recipe. The other half a bath was delicious on strawberries and a pan of boxed brownies I made the next week.

We searched 3 different stores to find a bottle of red food coloring so we could avid the expense of buying to multi-color packs we didn't need. We found a huge bottle at Smart and Final for a few bucks which was great. They also carry huge packs of jell-o and the perfect size plastic condiment cups and lids to make jell-o shots or kid-friendly jigglers. This was also our first basic cake decorating attempt. I used a new pastry bag and tip set I got for $5 at Ikea and it worked pretty well

Red Velvet Cake
Recipe courtesy of Johnnie Gabriel

Ingredients:
For the Red Velvet Cake:

* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon cocoa
* 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/2 cups canola oil
* 1 teaspoon vinegar
* 1 (1-ounce) bottle red food coloring
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup buttermilk

For the cream cheese frosting:

* 1/2 cup margarine
* 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
* 1 box confectioners' sugar, sifted
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
For the Red Velvet Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) round layer cake pans.

Sift flour, baking soda and coco together. Beat sugar and eggs together in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl mix together oil, vinegar, food coloring, and vanilla. Add to the bowl of eggs and sugar and beat until combined.

Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk to the wet mixture by alternating the buttermilk and dry ingredients. Always start with the flour and end with the flour.

Pour batter into pans. Tap them on the table to level out the batter and release air bubbles. Bake for 25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted near the middle comes out clean but be careful not to over bake or you'll end up with a dry cake.

Let layers cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning out of pan. Cool completely before frosting.

For the cream cheese frosting:

This is the "official" cream cheese frosting recipe but we always use about 1 1/2 recipes on each cake to cover it well.

Let margarine and cream cheese soften to room temperature. Cream well. Add sugar and beat until mixed but not so much that the frosting becomes "loose". Add vanilla. Spread between layers and on top and sides of cake.

Enjoy!