A la Carte: There's Always Something to Celebrate with Red Velvet Cake - lymeline.com

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Lee’s Red Velvet Cake recipe can be adapted to make delicious cupcakes. Photo by Owen Bruce on Unsplash.

I have not seen my son, daughter-in-law and their three grown daughters since Thanksgiving of 2019. I missed another Thanksgiving, Christmases, Greek Easters and many birthdays.

But Sydney, my second oldest granddaughter, will celebrate her March 16 birthday with her nuclear family and me in Newburyport, Mass. I will bring dinner, probably Pasta Bolognese, a big salad, lots of garlic bread and dessert. And that dessert will be Red Velvet Cake. 

The day Sydney was born, we drove from Old Lyme to the hospital in Beverly, Mass. I had been eating clementines in the car. When I held her in my arms  and she was then fewer than 24-hours-old, she sucked my orange-scented finger. From that day, I was hers forever.

Maybe I will take her a bottle of Grand Marnier!

Red Velvet Cake*

Adapted from The Confetti Cakes Cookbook by Elisa Strauss (Harper Row, New York, 2007)
Yield: serves at least 12 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter each pan, line bottoms with parchment, then butter parchment. Set aside. 

3 ½ cups cake flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)
1 and ½ teaspoons salt
2 cups canola oil
2 and ¼ cups sugar
3 large eggs (I have extra-large, which is fine)
6 tablespoons red food color (3 ounces!)
1 and ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 and ¼ cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 and ½ teaspoons white vinegar

Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl. Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat a medium-speed until well blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine in low, very slowly add red food color (be careful, it can splatter). Add vanilla. Add flour mix alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds. Divide batter among pans, place in oven and cake until cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans 20 minutes, then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel parchment. Cool completely.

*To make cupcakes: use cooking spray to muffin cups (or use cupcake liners), add batter and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, checking for doneness with a toothpick. 

Red Velvet Cake Icing

Adapted from The Waldorf-Astoria Cookbook by John Doherty with John Harrison (Bulfinch, 2006)

2 cups heavy cream, cold
16 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (reduced-fat is fine)
8 ounces mascarpone (available in most supermarkets in the fancy cheese section)
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Softly whip cream by hand in electric mixer. Cover in bowl and refrigerate.

Blend cream cheese and mascarpone in bowl of stand mixer or in large bowl with electric hand mixer until smooth. Add vanilla, pulse briefly and add confectioners’ sugar. Blend well. Fold in whipped cream. Refrigerate until needed. Yield: enough icing for top and slice of three-layer cake.

Place first layer cake on wide plate. Place pieces of waxed paper under each quadrant, about 2 or 3 inches in. Place lots of icing on top of layer and spread about half an inch to the end. Add second layer and to that again. Place the top layer on top and frost the entire cake around the sides. Add lots more to the top and spread. (I had enough left over for one one-layer cake). Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Lee White

About the author: Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant. She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and the Shore Publishing and the Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. She was a resident of Old Lyme for many years, but now lives in Groton, Conn.

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A la Carte: There's Always Something to Celebrate with Red Velvet Cake - lymeline.com
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