Well it was *supposed* to be red velvet...

I know. I've commited a huge blogging sin. It's been four months (FOUR!) since I last wrote a blog post. I've missed blogging edible goodies for all the fun holidays; halloween, my birthday, Christmas...I'm disappointed in myself! I started a new job in October and I feel like it's taken over my life. Sadly it's completely baking unrelated, and I'm working early, late, away, even a weekend or two. My New Year's resolution should definitely have been to make more time to bake.

But anyway, here I am, back with another promise to try and turn over a new blogging leaf! Here goes...

I'm no stranger to red velvet cake. I've tried Eric Lanlard's offering from his Soho shop Cox, Cookies and Cake:

Delicious and perfectly blood red!

I've sampled a mini red velvet cuppie from Ella's Bakehouse in Covent Garden:

I've even tried my own hand at Hummingbird Bakery's red velvet cupcake recipe.

But I've never made a large layer red velvet cake, and I wanted to give it a go. The results were not exactly as desired...

The recipe I used was from a book I got for my birthday in November, Cake Magic, and have yet to even open. Shameful. Anyway, it was slightly different to most other red velvet cake recipes I had seen, but I decided to give it a go.

The first disaster was that the recipe doesn't state how much red food colouring you should add, so I went with a guess of one tablespoon, and when that didn't appear to be enough, I added another tablespoon. But the result was...well just muddy purple. I thought there was rather a lot of cocoa powder for a red velvet recipe (30g), so I guess that explains the muddy colour. It suggested spreading the mixture over 3 x 8" tins, but I barely got it to spread over 2 x 7" tins. And well...when I took it out, it may as well have been a couple of biscuits. I know my oven IS pants but still, I expected them to rise a little, but nope, nothing!

So basically, I ended up with what I can only describe as two purple velvet excuses for cake, which were yummy, but pretty much tasted like your bog standard chocolate cake. And one fell apart when I took it out the tin. A failure you might think.

But fear not, because, as my dear old Grandad used to say, I have a cunning plan! And here is what I actually ended up with...

Mini layer cakes! Ok, so really it's just the size of a normal (ish) cupcake. But how cute! I ended up cutting out the decent bits of cake with a 68mm round cutter, sandwiched them together and voila! Not what I intended, but it all worked out tastily in the end. 

I haven't mastered the art of icing the cakes without getting the crumbs all through the icing yet...

A trip to Hummingbird Bakery

My friend Luke and I took a trip to London a while back, so of course I visited a few bakeries, and I've been meaning to blog about them ever since. So lets start with the good for this post... 

During our day, we visited Portobello Road market. While we were there, I obviously had to visit Hummingbird Bakery - I've got the cookbook, but unbelievably I've never actually been! I opted for something I've never tried before, a mango cupcake, and Luke was served the biggest slice of lemon meringue pie I've ever seen. 

I was so glad I tried this mango cupcake. After the first bite, I thought I was going to be disappointed, as the 'mango scented frosting' wasn't really to my taste. But that aside, the sponge was light, and moist, and once I got into the middle, I discovered the most amazingly tangy and fresh mango puree. I loved this cake, it was truly yummy. And as Luke was quiet for at least five minutes (a rarity!), I can only assume his lemon meringue was delicious too.

After I had demolished half of the cake...so gooey and yummy!

Unfortunately I don't have the mango cupcake recipe in my Hummingbird Bakery book, but if i can get my hands on it I will definitely be giving it a go! I fully recommend it :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I've heard a lot about red velvet cupcakes, and lots of people seem to rave about them, so I thought it was about time I gave them a go...they made a right mess! My finger was just one casualty of the red food colouring.

I used the recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery book, except I had no white vinegar so I used cider vinegar instead which is just a little sweeter, and some recipes call for it rather than white vinegar.

This recipe called for a LOT of beating. Now call me old-fashioned, but I've always been taught (mainly by my mum who is also a baking enthusiast) and by all of her 70s cookbooks, to fold flour gently into the mixture right at the end, to trap the air and ensure your cakes rise to perfection. So I was a bit dubious about all this high speed whizzing Hummingbird Bakery suggested - but I guess they are experts! Unfortunately my cupcakes rose rather unspectacularly. I seem to have somewhat of an issue with cakes that hardly rise though, and I think the problem is more to do with my cranky old oven than the recipes/techniques I'm using. Any tips would be very welcome though, as replacing the old oven isn't an option at the moment!

Anyway, this picture doesn't do the mixture justice - it was a brilliant blood red!

The recipe said bake for 20 - 25 minutes, but I took mine out after 20 and thought that was just a little too long; 18 or 19 minutes would have been just right.

I piped these with a simple vanilla buttercream, but I've heard cream cheese frosting is the traditional topping for red velvet cupcakes. I tend not to use a recipe for buttercream and have a habit of throwing everything in until it looks right. But here is the recipe for the cupcakes (not exactly as it appears in the Hummingbird Bakery book as they are very descriptive and I'm a lazy typer!) my notes in italics:

60g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

1 egg

1 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp red food colouring

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

120ml buttermilk

150g plain flour plus 2 tablespoons

(I don't know why the extra 2 tablespoons...)

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 1/2 tsp white vinegar (or cider vinegar in my case!)

• Preheat oven to 170⁰C.
• Beat butter and sugar on a medium speed until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer up to a high speed, and slowly add egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.
• In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a dark thick paste (I found it wasn't quite 'paste' like...slightly runny) add this to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly until everything is evenly combined and coloured.
• Turn mixer to a slow speed and pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, then add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. Repeat until all buttermilk and flour has been added.
• Turn mixer to a high speed, and beat until you have a smooth, even mixture. Turn the mixer to a slow speed and add the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Turn up the speed and beat again for a couple more minutes.
• Spoon into cases and bake for 20-25 minutes (I think 18 or 19 would be enough)

And voilà! My finished cake, topped with a red fondant heart. They looked quite pretty and wow, they tasted good! I will be making red velvet cupcakes again, very soon hopefully, but perhaps with a slightly different recipe next time...