Red Velvet Cake

Last night I took out the trash and realized we had more in our recycling bin than in our trash bin. Awesome!

Yesterday I made a red velvet cake for the first time. I've never eaten red velvet cake before so I'm not sure how it is supposed to taste, but Jon assures me it is what it is supposed to be. It tastes like cake, sure, but something about the bright redness of it makes me think it should have a stronger flavor. It is very mild, slightly sweet, hint of chocolate, but mostly a pretty vehicle for the yummy cream cheese frosting! I would make it again, though, because it is so lovely to look at.

I modified the recipe by adding slightly more sugar and cocoa powder, adding corn starch to make the flour more like cake flour, by halving the oil and replacing with applesauce, using two pans instead of three, and modifying the directions to get the chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. The original directions were all wrong. They had you mixing the flour and sugar together, not creaming the sugar with the wet ingredients! Madness. The "at room temperature" part of this recipe is important, particularly the buttermilk. It needs to be at room temperature to work its magic.

Red Velvet Cake Recipe
(Adapted from the Southern Red Velvet cake by Sara Moulton on AllRecipes.com)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups vegetable oil
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, at room temperature
2 large eggs, slightly beaten, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons red food coloring (1 ounce)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil and flour 2 (9 by 1 1/2-inch round) cake pans.

In a large bowl, mix or sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and cocoa powder. In another large bowl (not white or plastic...it will stain), cream together the oil, applesauce, and sugar until well combined and smooth. Add the buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, and vanilla. Put the baking soda in a pile on top of the wet mixture and pour the vinegar on top of it. Allow to foam for a few seconds and mix together into wet ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and a smooth batter is formed. (There will be a few bubbles from the foaming reaction of the baking soda and vinegar.)

Divide the cake batter evenly among the prepared cake pans. Place the pans in the oven evenly spaced apart. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking, until the cake pulls away from the side of the pans, and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Remove the cakes from the oven and run a knife around the edges to loosen them from the sides of the pans. One at a time, invert the cakes onto a plate and then re-invert them onto a cooling rack, rounded-sides up. Let cool completely.

Frost the cake, using some of the frosting between the two layers. Garnish with crushed pecans, if desired.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 8 oz. container regular of low-fat (not NOT non-fat) cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. orange zest or orange juice
3 cups powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese, vanilla and orange together until fluffy. Add the cream cheese and beat until combined and silky. Try not to eat it right out of the bowl.

This made enough to cover my two cakes and the layer inbetween, but just barely. You could make a lot more of this and just spread it on your face or eat it out of the bowl, it is so good.