Red Velvet Cupcakes

This has been a busy week of baking! I was asked to make a cake and cupcakes for a big meeting we had at work and this is what resulted! I think I am starting to get the hang of this whole cake decorating thing! These red velvet cupcakes were a hit!

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Red Velvet Cupcakes 

(1 dozen cupcakes)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup FLOUR
• 1/2 tsp BAKING SODA
• 1/2 tsp BAKING POWDER
• 1/2 tsp SALT
• 2 Tbs COCOA POWDER
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs CANOLA OIL
• 1 cup SUGAR
• 1 EGG, large
• 1/2 cup BUTTERMILK, room temperature
• 1 tsp VANILLA
• 2/3 tsp RED FOOD COLORING PASTE or 1 oz. RED FOOD COLORING
• 1 tsp WHITE VINEGAR
• 1/4 cup BREWED HOT COFFEE

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix the oil, sugar, and egg using an electric mixer. 
3. Add the buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix until everything is well combined.
4. Mix in the vinegar and coffee. 
5. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. 
6. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in the bowl of the electric mixer. 
7. Once all of the ingredients are well combined, divide the batter equally into greased and floured cake pans. 
8. Bake the cakes for 7 minutes at 400 degrees F. Then lower the oven temperature to 320 degrees F and bake for another 13 minutes. 

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Spatchcocked Turkey

To make this spatchcocked turkey you will need:

• 11 lb. TURKEY, thawed and cleaned
• 3 Tbs KOSHER SALT
• 1/2 tsp GRANULATED GARLIC
• 1/2 tsp BLACK PEPPER
• 6 fresh BAY LEAVES
• 2 sprigs fresh THYME, leaves removed
• zest from an ORANGE
• 1 sprig fresh ROSEMARY, leaves removed
• 1 ONION, chopped
• 2 CARROTS, chopped
• 3 stalks CELERY, chopped
• 4 Tbs BUTTER, melted (OIL may be better for such high temperatures)

Three days before cooking use a food processor to pulse the salt, garlic, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, orange zest, and rosemary until all ingredients are the same size. Rub this mixture all over the bird, under the skin, and inside the bird. 

Wrap the bird in cling wrap and put it in the fridge for three days. The night before cooking, take the turkey out of the cling wrap and place it back in the fridge for at least 8 hours to dry out.

Take the turkey out of the fridge 1 hour before cooking to come to room temperature. Chop up the onion, carrots, and celery. Toss the vegetable in a little bit of oil and lay them out on a baking sheet that has been covered in foil. Then place a cooling rack on top of the baking sheet with vegetables. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. 

Cut the spine out of the bird and then lay the bird out onto the cooling wrack. Use this video for directions. 

Brush the melted butter (or oil) onto the bird and when ready stick it in the oven!

Bake for about 70-90 minutes, until the thighs are 165 degrees F and the breasts are 150 degrees F.

Dry Rub: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jeff-mauro/crispy-skinned-herb-roasted-turkey.html
Video: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/video-how-to-spatchcock-turkey-thanksgiving.html

Despicable Me: Minion Cake!

My husband's birthday was yesterday and I wanted to surprise him with a really cool birthday cake. He loves the Despicable Me movies (but who doesn't love those movies?! They are so cute!) so I decided to attempt to make him a minion cake! Everything was going according to plan, I bought all of the materials, and baked the cakes. Then, my husband came home from work on Thursday and said that he took Friday off for his birthday! This would have been fine if I hadn't been planning on building the cake on Friday! His birthday wasn't actually until Saturday so I decided to just make it work! 

"Making it work" ended up meaning that I stayed up all night on Friday after he went to bed and built the minion in the middle of the night! I didn't get to bed until about 6:00 am!! The minion didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped, partly due to my decreased desire for perfection and willingness to go back and re-do things since it was so late, but I think it turned out alright in the end! ...as long as you ignore the fact that he doesn't have any arms...oops! I think he's still pretty cute though!

I started off by preparing the base. I used a 12 in. x 12 in. x 0.5 in. piece of wood and 3/16 in. wooden dowel rods. 

My husband's favorite cake is Betty Crocker's yellow cake with chocolate icing, so that's what I made!

I used 2 boxes of the cake mix to make the minion.

I baked the cakes in 6 in. round pans, using 1 & 3/4 cup of batter for each layer.

I baked the cakes for 35-40 minutes at 325 degrees F. I ended up with 5 layers.

After the layers are cool, cut off the tops to make them level if needed.

I stacked the layers after they had been leveled and they came to about 10 inches tall.

Once I was ready to build the minion, I covered the board first in foil....

...then in a layer of fondant, and then covered the fondant in cling wrap. Make sure that the holes are not covered though! The cling wrap will be removed after it has been decorated. They stick the dowels into the holes.

Then start putting the layers on and spreading on the icing!

Once all of the layers are on, make sure that the dowel rods are not poking out the top and shape the cake to be rounded on top.

Once the cake is shaped properly, cover the outside of the cake in more icing!

Then decorate the cake using fondant to look like a minion. This video shows how best to go about decorating the cake: http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/despicable-me-2-3d-minion-cake-decorating-tutorial/

Once you have finished decorating the minion, remove the cling wrap, and admire your work!

This shows the best way I could see to cut into the cake when we were ready to eat him!

Betty Crocker Mix Guide:
http://www.bettycrocker.com/~/media/Files/PDF/SupermoistCakeMix/BettyCrocker_WeddingCakes.pdf

Minion Tutorial:
http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/despicable-me-2-3d-minion-cake-decorating-tutorial/

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

To make this 3 layer 9 inch carrot cake you will need:

• 2 cups SELF RISING FLOUR
• 1 tsp BAKING SODA
• 1 tsp SALT
• 2 cups SUGAR
• 2 tsp CINNAMON
• 4 EGGS
• 3 cups CARROTS, grated
• 1 & 1/2 cup OIL

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Then, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

Mix in the eggs, grated carrots, and oil.

Pour the batter into your pans... (I made a mini cake this time and only made half of the batter)

and bake the cakes for 30 minutes!

Let the cakes cool, and then ice them!

They even make delicious cupcakes!!!

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3 Layer Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups SELF RISING FLOUR
• 1 tsp BAKING SODA
• 1 tsp SALT
• 2 cups SUGAR
• 2 tsp CINNAMON
• 4 EGGS
• 3 cups CARROTS, grated
• 1 & 1/2 cup OIL

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Then, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
2. Mix in the eggs, grated carrots, and oil.
3. Bake the cakes for 30 minutes!

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Cream Cheese Icing

NOTE: You will need to double this recipe if you make the full sized cake!

Ingredients:

• 1 sticks BUTTER, softened
• 3 & 3/4 cups POWDERED SUGAR, sifted
• 1 (8 oz.) package of CREAM CHEESE, sifted
• 2 tsp VANILLA EXTRACT

Directions:

1. Using an electric mixer cream the butter and cream cheese together using the paddle attachment. 
2. Once the mixture is smooth, turn the mixer down to a low speed and start adding the powdered sugar. 
3. After all of the powdered sugar has been mixed in, add the vanilla. 
4. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and continue mixing for about 3 minutes to make sure everything if fully incorporated. 

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Red Velvet Cake Taste Test!

So last week I decided to have a little red velvet taste testing session. I compared three cake recipes and two icing recipes. This is what it did to my kitchen... and I cleaned as I went! :/

One thing you definitely need with red velvet cake is plenty of red food coloring!

The batters all turned out so pretty and bright!

Ok, now to the point. The comparison! I cut three different recipe by four so I didn't have bazillions of cupcakes. 

                                          Batter #1:                                 Batter 2:

Batter 3:

And here is how they cooked up!

Ok, now onto the icings!

The first one I tried was a flour icing and can be seen below....and I uhhh...didn't make it right and it was uhhh...pretty bad. I'll have to try that one again sometime and see if it turns out better...

Next I made a vanilla icing with a vegetable shortening base and it was delicious! Definitely a keeper! Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the recipe!

Cupcake #1:

Cupcake #2:

Cupcake #3:

After they were all iced, it was time for the taste test! The best part!

After tasting all of them this is what I decided:

Cupcake 1: Very moist! Maybe too moist for a cupcake because it was hard to get out of the paper, but would be perfect for a cake. Also had great flavor! It didn't fluff up very much though.

Cupcake 2: A little dry. Easy to get out of the paper. Didn't rise very much. Overall, not great...

Cupcake 3: Beautiful, rose nicely. Came out of the paper easily.  Great texture. (And just so happen to be my mom's recipe! I guess mother really does know best!) Could use a little bit of a flavor boost compared to cupcake 1 though...sorry mom!

What I decided was that I basically want to cross the 1st and 3rd cupcake to get the flavor and moistness of the 1st, but the texture and looks from the 3rd. I also decided that chocolate cake is better than red velvet cake. Sorry, I know this is supposed to be about red velvet cake, but I like my chocolate cake better!

Ok, so for a delicious RED VELVET CAKE follow this recipe! (I will post a cupcake recipe once I play with combining the 1st and 3rd recipes) To make a fabulous, moist, flavorful two layer, 5 inch, round cake you will need (to make a 2 layer, 9 inch, round cake just double this recipe!):

• 1 cup FLOUR
• 1/2 tsp BAKING SODA
• 1/2 tsp BAKING POWDER
• 1/2 tsp SALT
• 1 Tbs COCOA POWDER
• 1/2 cup CANOLA OIL
• 1 cup SUGAR
• 1 EGG, large
• 1/2 cup BUTTERMILK, room temperature
• 1 tsp VANILLA
• 1 tsp RED FOOD COLORING PASTE
• 1 tsp WHITE VINEGAR
• 1/4 cup BREWED HOT COFFEE

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 320 degrees F.
2. Mix the oil, sugar, and egg using an electric mixer. 
3. Add the buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix until everything is well combined.
4. Mix in the vinegar and coffee. 
5. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. 
6. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in the bowl of the electric mixer. 
7. Once all of the ingredients are well combined, divide the batter equally into greased and floured cake pans. 
8. Bake the cakes for 20 to 25 minutes.

To make the delicious VANILLA ICING you will need:

• 2 cup SHORTENING 
• 8 cup POWDERED SUGAR
• 0.5 tsp SALT
• 2 tsp VANILLA
• 6 oz. HEAVY CREAM

Directions:

1. Cream the shortening until it is fluffy using an electric mixer. 
2. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar. 
3. Add the salt, vanilla, and cream. Mix until well combined. 
4. If it is too thick add more cream, if it is too thin add more powdered sugar.

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Red Velvet Cake 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup FLOUR
• 1/2 tsp BAKING SODA
• 1/2 tsp BAKING POWDER
• 1/2 tsp SALT
• 1 Tbs COCOA POWDER
• 1/2 cup CANOLA OIL
• 1 cup SUGAR
• 1 EGG, large
• 1/2 cup BUTTERMILK, room temperature
• 1 tsp VANILLA
• 1 tsp RED FOOD COLORING PASTE
• 1 tsp WHITE VINEGAR
• 1/4 cup BREWED HOT COFFEE

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 320 degrees F.
2. Mix the oil, sugar, and egg using an electric mixer. 
3. Add the buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix until everything is well combined.
4. Mix in the vinegar and coffee. 
5. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. 
6. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in the bowl of the electric mixer. 
7. Once all of the ingredients are well combined, divide the batter equally into greased and floured cake pans. 
8. Bake the cakes for 20 to 25 minutes.

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Vanilla Icing

Ingredients:

• 2 cup SHORTENING 
• 8 cup POWDERED SUGAR
• 0.5 tsp SALT
• 2 tsp VANILLA
• 6 oz. HEAVY CREAM

Directions:

1. Cream the shortening in an electric mixer until it is fluffy. 
2. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar. 
3. Add the salt, vanilla, and cream. Mix until well combined. 
4. If it is too thick add more cream, if it is too thin add more powdered sugar.

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I found this red velvet cake on this website: http://vintagetrinkets.blogspot.sg/2013/08/red-velvet-cake-with-vanilla-cream.html