Red Velvet Cake

Valentine's Day is just days away. What better way to celebrate it than with a Red Velvet cake. Well, it was the last Valentines season when I first tried my hand at Red Velvet cup cakes and my husband loved it. I think he loved the cream cheese frosting more. Valentine's day is normally not a big affair at our home, but I am still excited over trying something exciting to bake or make.

I baked it from my favorite recipe below. I started out with making a 2 layered cake, but one cake got stuck badly, so instead made up cake balls from it, and just a single layer cake with the other. Ended up with not so smooth cream cheese frosting. Actually I did not get a chance to smooth the icing as 3 adults were hovering over me to get away so they can dig into it. So it wasn't surprising when it was over in a matter of minutes.

This is the recipe from pinchmysalt blog.

Red Velvet Cake

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 oz. red food coloring
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans or three 8-inch round cake pans.

2. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.  In a small bowl, mix food coloring and cocoa powder to form a thin paste without lumps; set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and the red cocoa paste, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go.  Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk. Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of buttermilk. End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

4. Make sure you have cake pans buttered, floured, and nearby.  In a small bowl, mix vinegar and baking soda.  Yes, it will fizz!  Add it to the cake batter and stir well to combine.  Working quickly, divide batter evenly between the cake pans and place them in a preheated 350 degree oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check early, cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. To remove the cakes from the pan, place a wire rack on top of the cake pan and invert, then gently lift the pan.  Allow cakes to cool completely before frosting. Frost with buttercream or cream cheese icing (recipe below).

Recipe Notes: *Sift cake flour once before measuring, then sift again with the other dry ingredients per recipe instructions. Wear an apron and be careful with the red food coloring. As you’re mixing the cake batter, use a spatula to scrape down the bowl frequently throughout the entire process. To mix flour and buttermilk, use cut and fold method, instead of the mixer. It makes for a softer cake.

Cream Cheese Frosting

16 oz. cream cheese (2 packages), softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick), softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
pinch of salt

With an electric mixer, blend together cream cheese and butter until smooth.  Turn mixer to low speed and blend in powdered sugar, salt and vanilla extract.  Turn mixer on high and beat until light and fluffy. Use immediately or refrigerate, covered, until ready to use.  If refrigerated, the frosting will need to be brought to room temperature before using (after frosting softens up, beat with mixer until smooth).

Recipe Notes: If you prefer a sweeter and/or stiffer frosting, more powdered sugar can be added (up to four cups). But remember, the more sugar you add, the less you’ll be able to taste the tangy cream cheese!

Happy Baking!

Welcoming Back Ryan

This new year started with good news. One of my colleagues, Ryan, who was on disability after a major accident, for over an year, is returning back to work. I wrote about him a while back on this blog here.

Today was his first day back to work and we wanted to do something special to welcome him. For my part, I made this banner. Everyone got something including balloons, donuts, cake, brownies and some amazing cake pops. I wish I had clicked a picture of the set-up.

Well, this is wishing Ryan and his family all the best.

Elmo & Cookie Monster Pom Pom

These pom poms make such cute gifts, especially for kids. You can even make Christmas tree ornaments out of it. I made these Sesame Street characters : Elmo and Cookie Monster pom poms as a birthday favor for my son's friends at daycare. I came across these pom poms on this site, and thought this was the most adorable pom poms ever. And as luck would have it, my son's 2nd Birthday party was Sesame Street themed, so these were just perfect.

As this was my first time making any pom poms, I used this tutorial to learn the basics. For these pom poms, I used 4 fingers to roll the yarn to get the appropriate diameter. 

The most difficult part was trimming it. Once I started cutting, it was hard to know when to stop, and most of the times, at the end of trimming, I did not have a round pom pom. So this technique of trimming will come very handy. 

  

For Elmo's eyes I used googly eyes which are available at any craft store. The nose is a readymade orange pom pom, as I was not very successful in making such a small pom pom out of wool. The mouth is cut out of felt. 

Initally, to paste eyes, nose and mouth, I used 'All purpose glue', but it did not work well on 'not so thick/even' pom poms. Even the ones on which I thought it stuck good, my son took less than a second to rip the eyes off. So I had to come up with another alternative which would survive toddlers hands: hot glue it was, and it worked like a charm. 

I attached a keychain to it which made it easy for kids' little hands to hold it. You can tie a ribbon to make an ornament out of it.

After 15 pom poms and stiff hands, I thought no more pom poms for a while. But other day, Kabir saw some orange yarn in my stash and asked if it was for 'Zoe' - an orange character from Sesame Street.  :-)

Reindeers : Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

Aren't these perfect for the holiday season. I made these Chocolate covered Marshmallow Reindeers for Holiday Potluck Dinner at my office today. My team was responsible for getting the Desserts which was just perfect for me. The idea of chocolate coated marshmallows has been going around in my head since last few days, and so I decided to put that thought to work. I had seen few Reindeer cake pops on the internet, but I had marshmallows on my brain. So after little search, I found this tutorial. 

So yesterday, fighting the ice storm and slick roads here, I decided to get the ingredients for the pops on my way back from office. After saving myself from two falls, I managed to reach home(with the ingredients) in one piece. Rohit was totally shocked over my pit stop in this weather. Schools and many offices were shut, and I was out shopping for reindeer pops. It sounded funny when he put it that way. 

  

Before I started making it, I thought using marshmallows would be easier than cake pops, as I would be skipping the big step of making cake and rolling it into balls. But I was so wrong. Marshmallows was way tougher to work with.

Anyway, Kabir and I started the project with much enthusiasm. Kabir sat with me through the whole process, watching intently at first, and then trying to eat all my ingredients. By  the time it was all done, Kabir had had his dinner of pretzels, marshmallows and cinnamon dots with ocassional licking of chocolate bowl. 

Few things to remember while working with Marshmallows: 

1) Marshmallows are not frozen before coating with chocolate(unlike cake pops), so it takes longer for it to dry. 

2) Marshmallows are soft, so getting any decorations to stick to it, is not very easy. In this case, putting in pretzel antlers took some practice. I tried all sorts of ways, but what worked the best for me was scoring the sides(not top) of the marshmallow beforehand. While dipping a marshmallow into the chocolate, keep an eye on where you had scored it. And once its half dry, insert the antlers into the scored parts. 

While I was happy with the end result, my brain was working hard thinking how to feed real dinner to Kabir who was all high on sugar.

Flower Hair bands

Making these Flower Hair Bands has been one of my favourite projects. I have realised I enjoy working with felt and hand sewing more than anything else. I made these hairbands for my nieces in India. The girls asked me for the felt flowers long back, and I decided it was high time I made it. So before my last trip to India two months back, I completed this project to take it back with me. While I was on it, I made one for my cousin and myself, as I could not stop making these flowers. I used eco-fi felt for most, but I could not get all the nice shades of pink in it. So I ordered semi wool felt from etsy, and it felt so nice to work with. I don't think I can go back to working with the other felt now. This felt looks and feels so much better. It also cuts nice, and my flowers lay flat. Long story short, I will be ordering many more bundles of this felt. Love it.


This one flower band is for my younger niece Jahnavi. I used a soft broad band for her but I still doubt she will keep it long on her head though.

This 3 flower band is for my older niece Ananya. In the picture below, one flower looks blue, but it was actually more lavender.

This one is for my dear cousin Mini(Didi).I made a similar one for myself too.I still have to make one for my sister Henna before she visits me this month(hopefully). I had thought of making bands for us with 3 flowers, but when I tried it on, Rohit called me 'champa', and I decided to keep it minimum for the adults. And I think all of us would be wearing the one flower band more often than the 3 flower band.  But my sis as usual wants 6 flower band too..lol. Love her. 

Here is a picture where I am wearing this band I made for myself.

I wish I could have met and given these bands to my sweetest nieces personally, but as it was not a planned visit, I could not meet them.  So Didi, you would have to tell me if the girls liked it once you visit home.