Monday, 30 January 2012

My Disastrous Red Velvet Cake

Disastrous Tales of Baking...
    I love "The Food Network Magazine".  I have been purchasing it since 2009.  I love the pictures, I love the layout.  I pour through each new issue, sometimes at night I lay in bed and look at past issues.  This brings my to the disaster.  I have always been curious about "Red Velvet Cake".  There is a lot of hype about it.  It's huge in Pennsylvania, a state we love to vacation, and yet for some strange reason I have never tried it.  This issue's Food Magazine had several red velvet recipes.  This is the universe telling me to try it, I thought in my dreamy, stupid, self deluded way.
    Sunday was the day to try it I decided.  I would use my new Kitchen Aid mixer, my family would worship me, life would be good.  In my great wisdom I decided to make the cake one hour before I took my oldest daughter Grace to Curling.  Mistake number one.  The recipe called for enough ingredients for a double layer cake, I would just pare the recipe down, mistake number two.  I did not have "cake flour" but I read somewhere that cake flour just has baking powder added to it, no biggie,  I would just add baking powder, also the recipe called for "Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder", mistake number three and four.  The recipe was a bit strange in that the ingredients list was not in order, but all higgly piggly.  It called for the cooking time to be 30- 40 minutes.  I had to leave before the cake was done cooking so in my infinate wisdom I thought it was a good idea to just turn the oven off and leave the oven door open so that it would still have heat, but not overcook.  MISTAKE NUMBER FIVE.  I came home to a cake that looked like something you might see on the surface of the moon.

I am not the type to give up easily (not one of my more attractive qualities).  I decided that I should just make it again, mistake number six.  The second cake, not as moon craterish, but not great.  So the cake did not make anyone vomit, but I don't think that I would say that I could not live without Velvet Cake, well at least not the one I made!  Maybe I should just buy a mix next time I'm in the States, or try some that has been made by someone who has the right ingredients and knows what they are doing.

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