Classic Red Velvet Cake

Jingle bells, candy canes, cookies and winter,
Lit up homes, decorated trees and warm apple cider!
Santa's on his sleigh, commanding his reindeer,
Would you believe Christmas is already here?

Ok, I get it. I'm no good at poetry. But, here's what is good. I have something lovely to share with you. And, it is, after all the season of giving and sharing. This time around its a classic recipe for a cake that will give you every reason (if you haven't any yet!) to celebrate - Red Velvet Cake.

I had no clue something this divine and delicious even existed until we got to the US. Call me ignorant, but I had my first taste out of a two slice packaged box at my local grocery store, which was baked at the bakery on premises. It was both love at first sight and bite, really. The gorgeous red layers bathed in serene white cream cheese frosting had me swooning.

So, yes, it was a new thing for me. I obviously wanted to try it and I did not want to experiment the first time around. I found  the recipe on a popular baking website because I did not want to mess this up. Not one bit. It turned out great as you can see. 

Did you know that although this cake looks so very red, it even has cocoa in it? And, buttermilk? And vinegar? The cocoa heightens the rich flavor and the buttermilk  renders tenderness. Some believe that the red color comes from the reaction of the vinegar and the buttermilk. But, these days everyone uses food coloring to enhance the red. 

It is said that the Red Velvet is a distant relative of the very famous Devil's Cake. For certain, this one has the colour of his horns all over himself!! Before you start growing a pair of your own out of sheer sinful temptation - Go bake!

Cupcake Mania | Buttercream Frosting Recipe and Icing 101

There's really nothing much to be said on this post. I made this for a couple of close friends when we all met up at a new vacation home in the Poconos, that one of them had bought.

It was celebration time, so cupcakes were the perfect answer.

I baked over 3 dozen egg-less cupcakes. One batch of plain vanilla, one of vanilla with chocolate chips and one of good ol' chocolate. I then made blue, white and brown buttercream frosting and decorated them.

Here's the super simple recipe to the best and most popular frosting on this planet!

Buttercream Frosting Recipe


Ingredients
1 Cup Unsalted Butter/Vegetable Shortening, at room temperature
4 Cups Confectioner's Sugar, sifted
1 tsp. Vanilla Essence (Or any other flavour that you want to use, like almond, pineapple etc.)
2 - 4 tbsp milk (Or more depending on the consistency of icing you want in the end)

Other
Icing Colours (optional; as desired)
Electric Hand Mixer (Using a whisk would just take you much, much longer)

Icing Notes

1. Using Vegetable Shortening in place of butter will ensure you have pure white buttercream frosting

2. In order to make dark brown/chocolate colored frosting you will need to substitute one cup of sugar with cocoa powder. If it turns out too thin, add more sugar since sugar stiffens icing.

Method
- Place vegetable shortening/ unsalted butter and vanilla essence in a large bowl
- Add sugar about half cup at a time and mix using the hand mixer/whisk until all the sugar is well blended
- Add milk, one teaspoonful at a time to thin the icing to desired texture and mix well
- At this point the buttercream frosting is ready and you can colour it with desired icing colours

Icing Texture Guide
a) Very Stiff/Minimal Milk usage -This type of icing takes effort to spread because of its extreme thickness. It is best for icing flowers and decorations that need to hold their shape
b) Medium Consistency - This type of icing spreads when pressure is applied but still holds shape. It is best for cake borders and icing patterns
c) Thin Consistency - This type of icing spreads very easily and is perfect to cover cakes

Adding Colour to Icing
- Icing colour comes in the form of gel. If you plan on using liquid food colouring, remember that the liquid can thin out the consistency of your buttercream icing.

- Use toothpicks to pick colour from the icing gel tub and then dip into the buttercream icing. Mix in the colour using a rubber spatula.

- If you need to add more colour, always use a new toothpick to pick the icing colour gel

I hope you found all this information helpful. I am no professional at this stuff, but all this is based on what I've read, learnt and experimented with.

And, to end this post I'd like to share a picture that I personally love the most, even with some flaws in the frosting/frosting technique.

Drool on!

Hurricane Cupcakes | Egg-less Mocha Cream Chocolate Cupcakes

Did you know a woman named her child Tsunami because he was born when the natural disaster occurred? Well, I know its personal taste, but, really?! I thought it was bordering on absurd. I mean tsunamis are dangerous, to say the least. 

But when hurricane Irene decided to spend the weekend with us not too long ago, I was thinking of things more than dangerous. With hurricane warnings all over town, packed grocery stores, no bottled/packaged water and no flashlights available anywhere, Ms. Irene sure had pressed the run-for-your-life button in all of us along the East Coast.

Now, where was I? Yes, the woman who named her child Tsunami. Well, I did something sorta similar. But, before you get ideas and think I renamed my son 'Irene' and categorize me as a maniac...listen up!

I decided to celebrate that we survived Irene. No power outage, no flooding, no evacuation orders, no broken homes around our area and to top the list we were still alive! Oh yes, go ahead and call me a chicken all you want, but, I was freaked out.

But, we really lucked it out don't you think? And, yes, the oven was still working. So why not bake? I mean you could not go out, no traffic allowed on roads, trees ripped apart, heavy winds, flood warnings and you certainly don't want to see more of the graphic hurricane representation but you do want to eat good food. That's when I whipped up these egg-less mocha cream chocolate cuppies with my friend, DS. We had a great time baking, frosting and eating 'em up.

Need more inspiration than a hurricane to bake these? Try these cupcakes and top them off with Chocolate Ganache (Recipe here), fresh cut strawberries and mint.

Before I proceed to the recipe, I'd like to let you know that this recipe originally belongs to my friend Madhuri Kumar. It's an egg-less, butterless 5 minute chocolate cake made in the microwave. I have lost count of the number of times I've made it.  Need I say more to have you enter your kitchen?

Fresh Cream Fruit Cake

When it comes to sports or any other arena that requires a competitive spirit, people get diplomatic in talking about victory. We all, for that matter, would agree when one says - "It doesn't matter who wins or looses. What counts is playing a healthy game". So, it was just with this notion in my mind that I baked this 'Bleed Blue' themed Fresh Cream Fruit Cake to support the Indian Cricket Team as they competed for the Cricket World Cup against Sri Lanka. Bleed Blue was the caption/motto of the team (created by Nike? Did I get that right, ardent fans?) which was sported across social networking sites and got my attention. It certainly had my adrenaline running when I got to know my nation was in the finals of a game that's close on the heels of religion in India.

So, a couple of us friends got together with our families to witness what would go down in the pages Indian history. While our team gave their best shot and won the World Cup, it was taking us (still is!) to sink in and digest the heady win it was. Well, what was easier? Sinking our teeth into this sinful fresh cream fruit cake to celebrate victory. 

While in most cases fruit cakes are topped off with all kinds of fruit possible, I decided to go with fruit that came closest to the colours of our Indian flag. Saffron (Oranges) and Green (Kiwi) and added blue food colouring to write the very inspiring words.

Team India, we Bleed Blue for you!!

Black Forest Cupcakes

What's better than good food and great company? Well, it is pretty simple - Good food, great company and LOTS of chocolate. And, what makes all this even better? Serving all this to a bunch of wide-eyed toddlers eagerly waiting at the door as you walk in with a box of freshly baked and frosted Black Forest Cupcakes. Pure joy, I say! That is precisely what I did for my little sonny S, when he moved from his playschool to prep-school early this September. I know, I know it is over a month now - How in the blue blazes did I not post it so long? Oh well, better late than never, eh?

The kids (and the class teachers) enjoyed this treat. I sure wish you would, too. Go on and make them. These gorgeous babies are only a whisk away!

Pineapple Pastry

Did'nt I just make my first Black Forest Cake like a blink ago? Yes, I did. But once it was over, I was almost intoxicated by the rich tastes and memories it left behind...and not to forget, a great learning experience. And since it turned out so good, I was waiting to try my hand the next best pastry I've ever eaten (Oh yeah, chocolate comes first...at all times!) - The Pineapple Pastry. And as if God heard my prayers it happened to be my cousin brother's 15th wedding anniversary just a week after the idea grew in my head. What better excuse does an obsessed baker need?

Making this one is pretty much on the lines of making a Black Forest Cake. Just that you need to interchange all of the Chocolate and Cherry works with everything Pineapple! That said, I am going to get a wee bit lazy and make complete use of the Copy and Paste features that we're all blessed with on our computers, so that I save a little time on typing out all the similar aspects of making these two pastries.

And just because I said I will be copying a good chunk of the procedure from the Black Forest Cake does not mean I wont  guide you at all. I will give you additional information along the way, where required, so stay awake and start reading up this humongous recipe. This is not just drool-able but VERY do-able, too!

Black Forest Cake

While baking regular cakes and frosting them for every birthday in the family became a routine, the only stone left unturned was to try and bake the master of all things pastry - Black Forest Cake. Just the three words all by themselves have the power to get anybody into an indulgent mood. That said, this year I decided I would take the plunge and try my hand at baking this divine dessert for my hubby's birthday (psst... and mine, too, which followed!)The last two weeks saw me making frequent trips to the grocery store as I tried to put together all the ingredients needed to make this fabulous cake long before the big day. Besides, since the procedure is a bit long drawn (But it is definitely not difficult! If I can do it so can you!!) I decided to spread the whole baking and decorating process over three days. If you love eating and baking, you will enjoy every single moment of putting together this luxurious cake!

So, two days prior to the birthday, I baked the Chocolate Cake which forms the base of the entire Black Forest Cake. One day ahead, I did the layering and basic assembly of the cake using sugar syrup, cherries and whipped cream. By this time, my cake had trippled in size and it sat the lowest rack in my refrigerator and I kept my fingers crossed that hubby dear would not notice it, since it was enrobed in cream and sort of got camouflaged into the white colour in the fridge. I decided to hit the sack early that night (although excitement of finishing up the cake decoration and all sorts of ideas kept me from falling asleep for a long, long time) and as I walked towards the bedroom I did the most stupid thing I'd have ever done in my whole life. I asked hubby - "Did you open the fridge this evening?". He was like, "Umm..No. But what kind of a question is that?". He obviously thought I was insane. Then I went ahead and said, "Oh why? Can I not ask you anything like that?" Good lord!! What was I talking? He smirked.

I decided that very moment to grab him down to open the fridge. Would you believe that? I showed him the cake that sat shabbily covered in whipped cream. I simply had to do it, lest he ends up dropping something on the cake if he wanted something from the fridge while I was asleep. I had done some random design on it with my star nozzle. Sadly, even after buying everything for the cake, I forgot to pick up piping bags for the frosting of the whipped cream and the damn nozzle kept slipping inside my zip-top plastic bag as I piped. So, I did the worst frosting work ever and ended up making the cake look like a pathetic attempt to decorate a wedding cake (which you see below) and decided to wake up early the next day to really fix things up to make it look perfect. He smiled on seeing the shabby cake and said "Thank you". I was like "Ugh! Guess what cake it is, will you?" (We women never quit, do we?) He goes, "How in God's world would I know....you have bathed the whole thing  in cream!!" That had us all in peels of laughter. So, I told him I would save at least that bit for his surprise the next day. And, on my hubby's birthday I gave the cake its finishing touches and final decoration just before he woke up - all in time for the surprise!!

Here's a pic of the disastrous decoration that sat in my fridge awaiting repair work.....

The next morning I woke up about half an hour early and fixed the decoration. I placed the done-up cake on the counter. The moment he freshened up and came out of the bathroom, I beckoned him into the kitchen to see and guess what sat awaiting him!

"Oh....Black Forest, huh! That looks good!". Was I relieved or what?! Now, so much for having bored you to death with that long story. But, good food is worth long stories, right? Ok. Ok! Here's the recipe!

Oh hang on!!! Before I jump into it, just one last thing. I've split up this recipe for a three layered cake into three steps:

STEP I - Baking the Chocolate Cake Base

STEP II - Layering and Basic Assembly

STEP III - Decorating the Cake to a Finished Product

I feel I've gone back to my Technical Writing profession talking about steps and procedures as write User Manuals all over again! Well well!

So, each of these steps can be done one day at a time. Now, that's easy, is'nt it?

STEP I - Baking the Chocolate Cake Base

This step involves baking a choclate cake which acts as a base to the entire finished product. If you intend to make Chocolate cake anytime, just follow this one and you'll have a moist chocolate cake ready in no time!

Ingredients for the Chocolate Cake (Base of the Black Forest cake)

1 Cup All purpose flour (Maida)

1 Cup Confectioner's Sugar/Powdered Sugar

1 Cup Butter - Unsalted, at room temperature

3 Extra Large Eggs, at room temperature (If you are using small eggs, use 4 nos.)

3/4 tsp Baking powder

3/4 tsp Baking soda

3.5 tbsp Cocoa powder

1 tsp Vanilla essence

1/4 Cup Milk

A pinch of salt

Method

- Preheat oven to 350F and prepare baking dish by smearing oil/butter all over the insides. Dust flour to evenly cover all parts of the dish to prevent the cake from sticking to it once baked

- Cream together butter and sugar and set aside

- In a large bowl, sift together all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Repeat the sifting process into another large bowl to make sure you have a homogenous mixture of all these dry ingredients

- Now, break eggs into another bowl and beat until fluffy/frothy (about 10-15 minutes) and doubled in quantity

- Pour the beaten eggs into the creamed sugar-butter mixture and beat again until well mixed

- Add the vanilla essense to this wet mixture

- Slowly pour and fold in small quantities of this wet mixture into the dry ingredients using a flat spatula, as you combine it all together to form a smooth batter.

- This batter may be thick, so pour in the milk gradually until such a point where you are easily able to maneuver your spatula in the same and batter is all creamy and dreamy

- Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish (I have used a 9" round dish) and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when pierced in the center of the cake

- Once baked transfer the cake onto a cooling rack to allow the cake to come down to room temperature

If you intend continuing to STEP II, make sure the cake is completely cooled. But if you want to go to STEP II the next day, go ahead and place the cooled cake in the refrigerator overnight.

STEP II - Layering and Basic Assembly

This step involves cutting the cake into layers, dousing them in sugar syrup and topping them off with whipped cream and chopped cherries. Sound's easy breezy, does'nt it? Go right ahead and do it!

Take your cake out of the fridge and place it on your contertop until you grab the ingredients required to layer and frost it. This will allow the cake to come back to a warmer temperature before you flip it over your cake board/plate (The one on which you intend cutting it in the end). Now, get hold of all the following things from around your kitchen/pantry.

Ingredients

4 Cups - Whipped Cream/Topping (I used store bought ready-made whipped cream to save me some time. If you intend making it from scratch, go right ahead. Just whip together, in a chilled bowl,  3.5 Cups of heavy whipping cream along with 1/2 Cup (or more if needed) of Confectioner's sugar  until it forms soft peaks)

1 Bottle of Maraschino cherries (without stems) in syrup

3/4 Cup Water

3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar (Regular sugar)

Method

- In a saucepan, combine the water and granulated sugar and set to a boil

- Once the sugar melts, turn off the heat and set aside to cool

- Now, head back to your cake and flip it over your cake board/plate. If you feel the cake is giving you a hard time flipping over (and if you have used a microwave safe dish to bake it) then toss the cake, prior to struggling to get it out of the baking dish, into the microwave for about 15-30 seconds. This will warm up the cake and allow for it to be easily lifted off (by slowly tugging at the sides using a broad off-set spatula) and flipped over onto your cake board. Yet, be careful as you do this so that you dont end up with a broken cake!

- If your cake seems to wobble, turn it back onto original position and smooth away any bulging parts (using the serrated/ridged knife) and flip again onto your cake board so you have a sturdy base to work with. You could place a paper towel below your work area for all the (yummy) mess that follows

- Using a serrated/ridged knife cut the cake into two slices horizontally to form a three layered cake. Remove layers and set aside. Remember in which order and direction you have placed them, lest you end up placing them back in the opposite/wrong way leading to an odd shaped cake after its all done!

- Separate the cherries (I used only 3/4th of a 16oz./1lb bottle) from the syrup. Do NOT discard the syrup. Keep aside in a bowl.

- Chop cherries randomly into small pieces and set aside in another bowl

- (Optional step) Now, take about 5 tbsp of the cherry syrup and mix it with the cooled down sugar syrup to give the cake some extra cherry flavouring.
- At this point you should have one layer (the lowest one for the final cake) on your cake board. If not, place it on the same and mount it on your turn-table (Or put together a make-shift turn-table like I do - I just flip a large steel plate to place the cake, and then I mount this on my round chapati rolling stand. You can see it in one of the images below. Works just perfectly!)

- Lightly drizzle about 1/3rd of the quantity of the sugar syrup (or sugar-cherry syrup if you've included the previous step) over this layer of the cake, covering the entire surface area. This step is what gives the final cake that super moist texture!
- Now, scoop about 1 Cup of the whipped cream and drop the humongous dollop onto the lowest layer using a frosting spatula
- Spread all over the layer covering it completely such that you have a thick layer of whipped cream on it. Add more cream if you think your cream layer is not too thick since this is dependant on what size of a baking dish you used/size of your cake. A 1/2 to 3/4th inch thick layers of cream seem fine to me, but indulge if you like more!
- Now, sprinkle the chopped cherries over this cream layer. Your done-up layer should look similar to the image below

- Place the middle layer on top of this. Smooth out any cream that seems to be seeping out between the layers and place in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to set

- Pull out and mount the cake back on the turn-table. Repeat spplication of the the sugar/sugar-cherry syrup, topped up with the whipped cream and cherries to this layer and place the top-most/final layer

- To this top-most layer just drizzle the sugar/sugar-cherry syrup

- Now, using the frosting spatula drop about 1/2 to 3/4th cup of whipped cream and frost the entire cake. Your cake should look somewhat similar to the image below

- Don't worry too much if its not a very smooth coating all over since you can fix that in the next step

For now, place this frosted cake in the refrigerator overnight to allow all the flavours to marry, and try to get a good night's rest for the big day: The day you'd finish decorating and cutting and most importantly EATING the cake!

STEP III - Decorating the Cake to a Finished Product

This step involved coating the cake with a smooth layer of whipped cream and topping it up with all that you desire. Yup, yup! We're almost done and I am SO proud that you've read this far. Keep going...your divine dessert awaits you at the end of all this.

Ingredients

Left over whipped cream (You should have about 1.5 Cups left since we used only 2.5 cups before this)

4 oz bar of Semi-sweet Chocolate (I used Hersheys)
2-3 tbsp Chocolate syrup (I used Hersheys, again. I should probably rename this cake to Hersheys Black Forest cake, eh?)
A handful of Maraschino cherries, drained completely (You can use stemmed ones here if you wish)

Method
- Chop the chocolate into slivers/shavings using a sharp, ridged knife and set aside in a bowl/box back in the fridge, so as to avoid melting
- Take small dollops of whipped cream and apply a layer of cream over the sides of the cake as you simultanuously rotate your turntable. Use smooth back and forth motions to cover the entire cake (sides) evenly. Dont worry too much about tiny peaks and valleys. We'll work on them in a few steps.
- Drop about 1/2 Cup of whipped cream on top of the cake and spread out evenly using a flat spatula
- Run your spatula against the top edge to remove any excess cream between the sides and the top of the cake
- Now dip a steel frosting spatula, in hot water, wipe with a towel and spread out any uneven parts of the frosted cake as you rotate the turntable, to get a smooth finished look
- Using a wide spatula, dab on the slivered chocolate on to the sides of the cake. I hope you still have that paper under your turntable. Don't tell me that I did not caution you against this yummy mess!!
- Be careful while doing this so that you dont lose out on the smooth finish of the cake. You can still see some flaws in mine! I really have to work on frosting cakes!!
- Place cherries one inch apart on the edge of the top of the cake
- Now, pipe dollops of whipped cream between each cherry
- Drizzle the chocolate syrup in a zig zag pattern and voila!

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!!! Pop the cake in your fridge for a couple more hours to set it. Take it out just about 20-30 minutes prior to cake cutting/serving time. I like it that way 'cuz it gets the juices flowing as the cake comes to room temperature. But, if you like it really chilled, go ahead and dig in.

You still here? Ok, nice! Now, cut up a slice of your Black Forest Cake (Ah! finally we get to call it that!) and thank the creator of this world to have given humanity the capability to create something this fabulous. As for me, I am off to sing the popular hindi song - "Tera mujhse hain pehle ka naata koi, yuhin nahi dil lubhata koi" (You share a long-lost bond with me...How else would somebody seem so dear to my heart?!)  to the last slice of my Black Forest Cake!

Makes 12 slices of pure joy!

I'm sending this one to Madhuri's Chocolate Fest  as she celebrates the first anniversary of her blog, Cook-curry Nook.

A Date with Fondant!

Ever since we got to the US, I have always been hooked to watching Food Network. There hasn't been one passing day where I've not dreamt about cooking this or eating that dish that they make. But above all else, if there is one thing that really caught my attention was the shows that showcased cake decoration. I still continue to remain spell bound by the perfection with which those professionals work. Come November 2009, I was way to infatuated by everything that meant cake decoration since I always LOVE to bake. I had worked with plain old icing before and I wanted to graduate a step further and try my hand at fondant. For weeks, I spent time online researching ways of making it and where I could procure ready-made fondant. I did get lucky soon enough and found out that they sold it at art and craft stores! What an absurd place to sell cake decorating material I thought at first, but later I realized it does take an artsy person to work on it, which explains why its sold there.

I know I should have put up these pictures soon after I made them. But, I was way too busy gorging down good food that the festive/new year's season had to offer! Too many parties and too much good food in a short span of time. I did put up these pictures on Facebook but I'm not sure why they did not find a spot on my very own blog. So, here I do justice to my date(s) with fondant. Better late than never, they say!

The first cake you see is the one I made for Christmas. I'd like to call it 'The Season Of Giving', since X'Mas is all about giving presents and sharing love with kith and kin. It is a French Vanilla cake with a layer of Strawberry Cream and covered with fondant.



Although the box said I can use the fondant for one cake only, I had enough left over to make another one. And since New Year's was around the corner I grabbed the opportunity and baked this as a surprise for my friends who threw a party on New Year's Eve. This one I call - 'Wildflowers to Welcome 2010'!



I cannot wait to get my hands on more fondant (My hubby hates it because our kitchen turns into a bakery with confectioners sugar all over the place when I'm working on fondant cakes and he does not get meals on time since I am so engrossed with this!)....But, I will have to wait a tad bit longer. Boo hoo!

Hmmm, orders anyone?