Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Originally, this was a red velvet cake, but I couldn’t bring myself to add the full bottle of red food coloring to it. In its untinted state, it’s a light brown, so I’m calling it a National Velvet cake. It was also suggested that with sufficient black food coloring, it could be a Velvet Underground cake.

Suit yourselves.

2 1/2 C All-purpose flour (I prefer unbleached)

1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 C (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 C granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 C sour cream

1/2 C milk

2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla powder

1 oz. food coloring of your choice (optional)

Heat your oven to 350 degrees (that’s Farenheit, because I’m American and can’t be bothered to convert to a system that actually makes sense). Grease and flour two nine-inch round cake pans. I actually used cocoa powder for this instead of flour, because it avoids the white bloom and raw-flour taste on the finished cake.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and vanilla powder (if relevant) together.

Beat the butter and sugar together until they’re fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. I find that it’s best to crack the eggs into a separate dish, in the event of shell fragments. Add the sour cream, milk, food coloring (if using), and vanilla extract (if you’re not using the powder). Gradually mix just until everything is incorporated; don’t over mix the cake or it’ll end up tough.

Pour the batter into the pans, and bake for 35-30 minutes. Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack if you have one. Let cool completely before frosting (see below).

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Tales from the Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.