A red velvet for Halloween

Yes, I know there’s still plenty of time before Halloween, but I’m starting to bake a few goods to attract clients.

In the meantime my family takes advantage and eats nonstop cookies, cakes and cupcakes. I’m a terrible mother and wife, I know, but a try to feed them a lot of veggies too to compensate 😉

 For this cake I liked the idea of the red velvet underneath those tombs. It is chocolate, but with a kick!. I also made a really small cake because it was only for the photo-shoot for my web. But there was enough to tell you that it is delicious, moist and crumbly.

Traditionally red velvet is coated with a cream cheese frosting, but my lovely kids are not big fans of it (cheese is for nachos, mama!), so I decided to frost and fill this cake with Nutella (you can never go wrong with Nutella) and they worked really well together.

I hope you like it. Oh! And don’t worry about the zombies, they don’t bite!

Red velvet cake

Like I said before, I wanted to make a really small cake, otherwise we end up eating cake every day and that’s just not healthy. So I halved this recipe and used one 8 inch. pan (20 cm). It was quite simple with the cups and spoons measures.

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups (250 grams) sifted cake flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons (15 grams) regular or Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• ½ cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 ½ cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 ºF (175 ºC). Butter two 9 inch (23 cm) round cake pans and line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.

Beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

In a measuring cup whisk the buttermilk with the red food coloring. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz for just a second and then quickly fold into the cake batter.

Quickly divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 – 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Once the cakes have completely cooled, wrap in plastic and place the cake layers in the refrigerator for at least an hour (or overnight) before filling and frosting the cake.

Recipe from Joy of baking