Red Velvet Cake!

 The last time I tried to make Red Velvet cake it turned out to be a little bit of a disaster. I'd preheated the oven, made the batter and lined the cases (I was doing cupcakes in this occasion). In my last flat the oven was pretty rubbish. It only seemed to get hot on one side so everything took far longer to cook than it should. Anyhow on this day, the oven had decided to die. I turned it off and on again, hoping to trick it into action. No luck. So I did the only thing I could do - I grilled 'em. 

My friend did take one and steam it, which was... interesting. He did do it again with sillicone cases that held the shape better but I'm going off track! So yeah, the grill. They came out okay and were edible but not how red velvet cake should taste. So now my oven is amazing, time for round two!

 

 Ingredients (makes one cake or 24 cupcakes)

120g unsalted butter at room temp

300g caster sugar

2 eggs

20g cocoa powder

40ml red food colouring

1 tsp vanilla extract

120ml buttermilk*

300g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3 tsp white wine vinegar

*If you can't find buttermilk (I don't think I've ever seen it!) then just add a tablespoon of lemon juice or white malted vinegar to the milk, stir and then leave for 5-10 minutes. It'll curdle due to the acidity but that's what you want so don't worry!

Note : When looking at my photo, I realised I only put one egg in my mix. The cake was still very moist though, so I doubt it did any real harm.

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

2. Beat together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly add the egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.

3. In a seperate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food colouring to make a thrick dark paste. Add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly until well combined.

4. Add in half the buttermilk. Beat well. Add in half the flour. Beat well. Repeat with the rest of the buttermilk and flour.

5. Add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Beat again until well combined.

6. Divide the mixture between two greased cake pans or sepearate into 24 paper cases. Bake for around 20-25 minutes for cupcakes and 35-40 minutes for the cake or until the sponge bounces back when touched.

7. Leave to cool in the pans slightly before turning out onto a wire cooling tray.

Mine had a little bit of a fight with the greaseproof paper!

The best frosting for this cake is Cream Cheese!

300g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter at room temp

125g cream cheese, cold

(makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes, double recipe for cake)

1.Beat together the icing sugar and butter (pref with an electric mixer) until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.

2. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Continue beating until frosting is light and fluffy, around 5 minutes. Be careful not to overbeat though as frosting can become runny.

Recipes adapted from "The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook".

 

Chocolate Kisses

Sorry for my absence! My laptop charger dramatically died before the weekend so I had to make do with an hour of battery but I am now the owner of a new charger so back to blogging!

This recipe comes from the book "Eat Me!" by Xanthe Milton which I receieved for my birthday. It's a lovely book and I decided to make the recipe for Chocolate Kisses, one because they seemed relatively easy and two, because they could be taken to a friends to eat as I would be away for a good few days.

Chocolate Kisses Ingredients (makes 24)

170g plain chocolate
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
110g caster sugar
2 eggs
255g plain flour
icing sugar, for dusting

Let's just take a second to appreciate my new storage jars, hm?

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Grease two baking sheets with

butter.

2. Melt the plain chocolate (either in the mircowave or in a bowl over simmering water) Stir the chocolate until it is melted. Leave to cool.

3. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs one by one. Sift the flour over this mixture and mix together.

4. Add this mixture to the chocolate and mix thoroughly until the chocolate dough is fully blended. Knead with your knuckles so that the dough is smooth, then wrap in clingilm and chill for about an hour.

5. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll reaspoon-sized balls between your palms. Place the balls on the baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Dust with icing sugar and leave on a wire rack to cool.

Adapted from "Eat Me!" by Xanthe Milton.

These tasted very chocolatey and were tasty but I wasn't sure if they were a biscuit or some sort of cake. I suppose they were meant to be biscuits as they were baked on a tray rather than in cases but still, the texture wasn't that of most biscuits. One of my friends described it as being like a chocolate scone! Perhaps I'll need to try them again another time to see if the texture is any different.

What do you think - cake or biscuit?