Happy Valentines Day!


Sorry, this Happy Valentines Day greeting is kind of late.  It was a busy day for me. Running around, doing errands, helping and visiting family members.  Today, I spoke with my uncle Joe. I haven't talked to him in a about a month. I call him Bargain Joe. He seems to find all the bargains when he goes shopping. Usually if he knows it's something I'm interested in he will call me. He finds some really good bargains in Lodi. If he shares any bargains with me, I will share them with you.

So I just got home and figured, I better get to my blog.
Today I made my Red Velvet Cupcakes. A good friend of mine  took some to her work. I like to bake and help my friends. This friend has helped me a great deal so I didn't mind getting everything ready and meeting her at 6:45am this morning. This was my bakery recipe and  is really good. I never did understand why they called it Red Velvet when it's really a chocolate based cake before the red coloring. Oh, well it's good anyway.

This recipe makes one 8 inch double layer cake or 24 standard cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter,softened
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 Cup of Buttermilk (or regular milk and add 1 Tbsp Vinegar to it, makes like a buttermilk)
2 tsp White vinegar
2 Tbsp (1oz) Liquid Red food coloring
2 1/2 Cups of Cake Flour ( or sifted regular flour not self rising)

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

3 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Cup Cream Cheese softened
1/4 Sugar

Decorations(Optional)


First, in a mixing bowl combine butter,sugar,cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla until creamy. Then add eggs until blended. Next on low speed, stir in buttermilk, red food coloring and vinegar until blended. Add flour one cup at a time until well blended.

Peheat oven at 350 degrees. Spray two 8 inch cake pans with cooking spray and fill  evenly with cake batter. Bake in oven for 25-30  minutes. If cake is still wet, bake additional 5 minutes at a time until done. This cake usually is more dense and moister then regular cakes. To make cupcakes line two cupcake trays with cupcake liners and fill cups between 2/3 and 3/4 cups with batter. Bake for 15 minutes, if still wet bake additional 5 minutes at a time until done. Let your cakes cool then frost. You can use a premade frosting from store or the one I listed, a light whipped cream cheese frosting.

For the cake place cooled cake on a cake plate, cake stand or whatever you'd like to present it on. Then frost cake. Using the frosting for the filling as well. If  you have leftover cake trimmings, you cans crumble them down really fine and sprinkle along outside around the cake. The same for the cupcakes after their frosted( I usually take the not so great looking cupcake and crumble it up and use it for the sprinkles).

For the Whipped Cream Cheese frosting, place cream  and sugar in mixing bowl(I used my counter top mixer). Beat untill thick and  firm,but not like butter (sometimes if the cream is over whipped it looks like whipped butter).Then add soft cream cheese and beat again until a creamy firm mixter(sometimes you do  have some little lumps of cream cheese). The frosting should be thick enough to pipe on a cupcake or spread over a cake.You can frost anyway would like. I chose to use a large star tip to pipe frosting on cupcakes. Then you can decorate how ever you would like with edible hearts, with crumbs or just plain.

Remember, have fun and make it yours!


And that's the "DISH" for today!