Okay, so we’ve been busy working on a lot of other projects lately, but we’re trying to get up to speed on the food blog. Believe it or not, but we’ve been cooking a ton – we’re just too busy eating it than blogging about it! But that should end come these summer months, especially once I get armed with an awesome new smartphone.
In the meantime, we’re trying to get some pieces out of the archive including this cake made for our friend Eli’s birthday.
While I would love to take credit for this cake, it’s really a botched recipe for a Red Velvet Cake from Cake Man Raven over in my old neighborhood of Clinton Hill Brooklyn. While I can’t say that this cake is as good as what you can find at the store itself (which is always packed), it’s much, much less expensive and you have the ability to experiment with the recipe a little.
Before Cake Man Raven upgraded their website (complete with banging soundtrack), they posted their recipe online. However, you can find it in a bunch of different places, including the Food Network. This recipe is pretty true to the original although I rarely get enough for three layers while using 7 in cake pans. Regardless a double decker cake is just as impressive.
Be sure to build in adequate time for the cake to cool (I made the cake the night before) before you frost. Lacking good frosting skills, I went out and picked up a proper pastry knife and followed steps similar to this video. One good tip I picked up from my Cook’s Illustrated cookbook is to use a hair dryer on a low, high setting to give the frosting a shiny finish.
So why Lavender Velour Cake rather than Red Velvet? Well it’s actually quite simple – I didn’t have enough red food coloring for the cake, so it came out pink (which was Eli’s favorite color coincidentally). With some remaining red and blue food coloring, I made the frosting lavender, plus since I made it in Brooklyn, I thought velour would be more suitable than velvet.
Overall, the cake was perfect and fed about 12 people rather well. This is quickly becoming an Eli birthday tradition and I’m happy to contribute!