Red Because of Lots of Food Coloring Cake

It's almost Valentine's Day, and you know what that means-Red Velvet EVERYTHING! Red velvet cakes, red velvet cupcakes, red velvet pancakes...you see my point. I have never been a fan of red velvet. Semi-chocolate cake? Boring. I don't much care for regular chocolate most of the time, because it is always so one note: chocolate cake with fudge frosting. There's no variation, no contrasting flavors.

Anywho, I have tried red velvet cake several times and never seen what all the fuss is about. When I put the word out to the internets in the form of Facebook, I got several responses. Some love red velvet, some, like me, don't understand what is so great about it. One friend gave me her recipe for real Appalachian red velvet cake. I think I should give it a go and see if I really don't like it, or if I have just had inferior red velvet cakes in the past. When I do, I will post the recipe and photos here and give my verdict on the subject.

Til we meet again!

Pear Cake

Remember this? I knew I wanted to bake a pear version of this cake and one day while I was out shopping I found a bag of bartlett pears for $0.97! They were smaller than the ones I usually bought but the bag had enough in it to make up for size. So I ate a few and let the rest ripen just for this cake recipe.

As I was gathering all of the ingredients for the cake I noticed that I probably did not have enough white sugar to fulfill the two cups needed. Luckily I did have an even one cup so I used brown sugar for the other cup.

What an amazing difference! This cake was waaaaay better than the peach version and the brown sugar was the only difference. This cake is so tasty and tastes just like fall. Perfect way to start the season.

I posted this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website, Tasty Kitchen, so I am going to make you go to that site for the actual recipe. I urge you all to make this cake and then serve it warm, perhaps with some vanilla ice cream. But for now you can see some photos of this lovely cake.

3-2-1 Birthday Cake

So the 5th was Brandon's birthday. Of course I had to make a cake and our friend, Justin, came out and we went out to lunch at Famous Dave's.  If you have not eaten there and you have a chance to, you really should. It is quite tasty, good Southern BBQ.

I usually use a cake mix (gasp!) and spend most of my time on the decorating but Brandon wanted specific flavors for his cake (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) and didn't care how it looked so I made a cake from scratch using my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (mine is the 1993 edition.)

The cake came out yummy and much more dense than the boxed cakes and the frosting (actually an icing) was just as delicious as the last time I made it. I used Wilton's Chocolate Fudge Icing, which would be divine on brownies, and warmed it until it could be poured.

Here is the recipe and following that are some photos:

Ingredients:

Cake-
3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 T. Baking Powder (hence the 3-2-1)
1 1/2 c. Milk
1/2 c. Butter, softened
1 1/2 t. Vanilla
2 Eggs

Icing-
2/3 c. Butter
1 1/3 c. Cocoa
2/3 c. Milk
6 c. Powdered Sugar
2 t. Vanilla***

For the cake:
Set the oven to 375°. Spray or grease 2 9inch cake pans.*
In a bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking powder.
Add milk, butter and vanilla. Beat on low speed until combined. Beat on high for 2 minutes.
Add eggs and beat for 2 more minutes.
Pour into pans. Bake 25-30 minutes** or until done.
Cool for about 10 minutes the remove cake from pans and continue to cool on a wire rack.

For the icing:
Melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the cocoa and heat just until boiling, stirring constantly until smooth.
Pour cocoa/butter mixture into a bowl and cool.
Alternately add powdered sugar and milk and beat to a spreading consistency.
Blend in vanilla.

*I used an angel food cake pan, which turned out looking like a doughnut!
**The baking time was about the same.
***I ran out of vanilla at this point but it still tasted good.

Here it is right out of the pan. Looks a little like a doughnut!


First stage of icing application. Now it really looks like a doughnut!


I added shredded coconut and ground chocolate to the top.


Justin was REALLY excited about the cake (because I told him to!)


Brandon, contemplating that first bite.


The fudge icing is really rich so if you use it, you might want to go easy on the amount. It would also be really tasty on cupcakes or cookies.

The cake was really good and I want to try substituting pineapple juice for the water at a later date. All in all: two great recipes that need to be made by all.

Sam

Just Peachy

The fruit crisp was devoured in a matter of days so I knew I had to come up with another recipe soon.

Every week when I go to the farmer's market, the peaches always smell so delicious, I knew I had to buy some and make something fabulous.

After much searching I found this. Cake sounded like a good idea so I went ahead with it. I adapted the recipe slightly, adding more fruit because some reviewers had felt it wasn't flavorful enough.

The result was quite good. In the original recipe, it calls for the cake to be baked in a 10inch tube pan. We do not have one of these so I baked it in two loaf pans. We ate one and I froze the other. It will be a nice reminder of summer in the months to come.

Peach Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1 c. butter, softened
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
3 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 c. chopped peaches
1 c. mashed peaches
1 t. pumpkin pie spice

Heat the oven to 325°. Spray 2 glass loaf pans.
Cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the vanilla and pumpkin pie spice to the mashed peaches. Beat into the butter/sugar.
Reserve 1/4 c. of the flour. Sift the rest with the salt and baking powder. Stir into batter.
Use reserved flour to coat the chopped peaches. Fold peaches into batter.
Divide batter into the loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve with sliced peaches and whipped cream.

I used a combination of white and yellow peaches but it would be just as good with all white or all yellow or, even another fruit. Pears would be divine and now I think I have to try that!


In other news, school has started again. I am taking three classes this semester while waiting to get into a university. UC Santa Cruz has guaranteed acceptance with the Transfer Agreement Program but I wouldn't be able to go until next fall so to bring up my GPA and to keep my student loans at bay, I am staying in school. This semester I am taking Mysteries of the Ancient Maya, Sociology and Logic. Should be a fun semester!