Cake #2 - Red Velvet Cake with Raspberries and Blueberries

The subtitle of this post could be either:

Really, Epicurious? You can't just give us the flour amount in weight?

or

Purple velvet cake; holy crap, that's a lot of food coloring

To the first point: In this recipe for Red Velvet Cake, the directions call for you to sift the cake flour not once, but twice. Sift, measure, and then sift again with the other dry ingredients. It's a major pain the arse to sift cake flour and then measure (not that I personally did this step. Chris, my third kitchen helper [see previous post for my other two], took care of this portion of the recipe, not without a lot of swearing). If the recipe had given us the weight of the cake flour, life would have been much easier.

And then to subtitle two -- a tablespoon of red food color is a hell of a lot of food coloring. It's essentially a whole one of those little tear-shaped thingies. Needless to say, I did not have enough red food color and substituted with purple, thus our cake was purplish.


But, all that being said, this was one super yummy cake. Even Chris, who is not a fan of cream cheese frosting, ate leftovers. I am not ashamed to say that I had Purple Velvet Cake with Raspberries and Blueberries for breakfast three days in a row (cream cheese and fruit -- that's breakfast food, right?).

Oh, and totally suitable for celebrating fifth birthdays, if you need a cake for such an occasion.

Cake #1 & Cake #2 - Cambridge edition

This is my baking pantry at the beginning of this project. I intend to just pick up the pieces we need along the way as the recipes call for them. Not sure where I am going to put them, but I'll deal with that later.

I was excited to get going on the project and with our friend Jenny Gold coming for a farewell dinner, I thought it a perfect time to whip up my first cake. Of the 30 cakes, I am excited about some, interested in others and only down on about 2 of them. This Cherry Cornmeal Upside Down Cake was definitely one I had no interest in making. The picture did not look very good, it sounded like it would be corn bread with cherry cobbler/bucklesque, in a word, "eh".

BUT, it was the end of summer and really really the end of cherry season. And it was hot outside, so I had no choice. And this is where I dub it the "$29 Cherry Cake" as it will herein after be called.
You see, these luscious luscious looking fresh cherries were no small feat to find. First I went to the Farmer's Market in SoWa to try for local (do they even grow in MA?), fresh cherries. Nothing. And, only 20 minutes past my usual grocery store, so 40 minutes round trip. At least I picked up some other fruits and veggies for the week. Then on to Trader Joes where I like to do my main shopping. Hmmm, no cherries there either, but I remember I have a jar of their Morello Cherries in my pantry from an old Cook's Illustrated recipe. But then I see that they have frozen cherries in the freezer. I need 4 cups. I buy 2 bags just in case I cannot find cherries at Whole Foods, where I will stop on my way home - since it turns out, TJs does not carry cornmeal.

Whole Foods has fresh cherries! Only $4.99 / lb and packaged in bags that look like I will need 2 to get 4 cups. I buy 2 bags and and happily surprised for the first time in my life at Whole Foods by a LOW price. A huge thing of cornmeal was only $1.19. Score! And then I hit the checkout. WHOOPS! I just paid $18.98 for my cherries. I hate the pre-packaged bags now. I didn't bother to weigh them. I am in it now, I just pay and leave. I don't even want to make this stupid expensive cake now.

At home, Ben reports he tried to buy me a cherry pitter at the hardware store, which surprisingly usually has them, but was sold out due to cherry-season. I set out to pit the cherries with a knife while swatting Elliot & Ben away before they eat all the cherries I need for this cake. Turns out they could have eaten an entire bag of them - one bag would have been plenty. But, for the record, they were amazing.

Make the cake, mix the cake. Hey this sauteing cherries with butter, sugar and Balsamic(!) is fantastically fun. I want to do this again. And here is the result:




The photos really do not do it justice. This cake was nothing short of a surprise hit of summer. Fantastic! The cake was moist and perfect, and nothing at all like cornbread. The cherries were super tasty and gorgeous, despite how it looks here. We did have Christina's Cream Ice Cream with it - it was the perfect compliment and we all agreed it would have been missing something without a side of a la mode.

Despite the price tag (counting all the cherries I over-bought and frozen and jarred I did not ned to buy after all) - this cake is a keeper. Make it at the Beach next year when all those luscious cherries flow free.


And now, on to cake # 2. Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting. If it was not one of the 30, I would not be making this cake. A while ago, in LA, I set out to make the perfect Red Velvet. Of course, what is the perfect red velvet? I wouldn't know. I love ordering it, I love(d) making it, but really its just cake with a whole lotta food coloring in it. So after 5 previous recipes I hung up my gloves and turned my back on red velvet. But, the project prevails, so I make this one. Mostly because Mindy picked it and fresh berries were still in season. And it is fine. Good, not great. Nothing to get excited about for us. Red Velvet #6 is definitely going to be my last red for a while. I have to admit my bias is against cake with berries in the middle layer, so I am sure that is playing into it. I don't know. Its just a thing of mine.

The cream cheese frosting was very good, and worth using again.



It was fun having Elliot-sous apply painstaking detail to the berries in the middle layer of the cake. She is quite a able helper.

Voila! The finished cake. Note to me...red velvet is best photographed from a cut piece where you see the middle.

cake #1: cherry-cornmeal upside-down cake

And so we begin; Sherie may have been the first to bake, but I have the fun of being the first to post!

Preliminary thoughts about this project: this is NOT a cake baking contest. There is no keeping score between Sherie and I about whose cake was prettier, tastier, more "successful". She and I have yet to figure out any scoring system for rating the cakes...perhaps we'll be able to report on such a thing at a later date. And, as for our timeline...Sherie first baked this cake a few weeks ago, but as this is the first post, I'm going to declare that our year-long countdown begins...NOW! Between now and Labor Day of next year (good to start on a holiday, actually!), we will bake all 30 cakes.

And on to the cake! First up, chosen by Sherie, was the cherry-cornmeal upside-down cake.

I baked this cake as my submission for the dessert contest at my local block party. I didn't win, but that doesn't mean that the cake wasn't really delicious.

My first and primary recommendation for this cake is that you HAVE to use fresh cherries. Alas, all the cherries were gone from my local farmers' markets and grocery stores at the time of baking. Thus, I had to substitute Trader Joe's frozen dark sweet cherries. This substitution created two potential problems:

1. A very watery cherry sauce even though I strained my cherries before adding them.
2. Bland and not so sweet cherries.

I was sure that all this liquid would be a problem in the finished cake. In fact, you can see that it wasn't contained by the batter.
Surprisingly, however, the extra liquid wasn't a problem in the least. In fact, the cake was extremely moist.

The most difficult part of this recipe was flipping the cake out of the pan onto a plate. Have you tried to gracefully flip a cast iron skillet? The handle of the skillet got in the way of placing a plate flush on the pan. In retrospect, it would have been a better idea to flip onto a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet or larger pan. I could have then used the parchment to help me move it onto a plate. Instead, my flip was off center and then I had to scoot the cake into the center of the plate, leaving a smear on the plate.

And the cake? As previously mentioned, super moist. It tasted like the best yellow cake you ever had with an extra bit of crunch from the cornmeal. The cherries, however? Not so sweet. I needed extra sugar to take the frozen cherries to the sweetness of fresh cherries.

And? Kind of ugly? I mean look at it:
My cherries were very dark purple - almost black. In the dusk of our street party, some of the tasters seemed a bit wary of the cake until it was cut into slices allowing them to see the cake better. Needless to say, I lost the dessert contest to some very rich, very thick brownies.

* * *
My two trusty kitchen helpers: my Kitchen Aid mixer and five year old.