Valentine's Day

Red Velvet Cake made for promotion at my last LLL meeting. Red marshmallow fondant, decorated with royal icing. Vanilla buttercream filling. The cake went down great and I ever got an order from it!





Red Velvet Cake
3 ½ cups cake flour (you can use AP flour, minus 2 tbsp per cup + 1 tsp baking powder)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tbsp red food coloring
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar (I've used regular vinegar without issue)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. This recipe can make 2 8-9" round cakes or ~24 cupcakes.

1. Sift the cake flour.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time.

3. In another bowl, whisk cocoa, red food colouring, and vanilla.
4. Add to creamed mixture.

5. Stir salt into buttermilk, add to your batter alternating with the flour.

6. Combine vinegar and baking soda and fold into your batter.

For cupcakes, bake about 20 minutes. For cakes, bake 30-40 minutes.




Cake Balls
adapted from Bakerella's Cake Balls

Red velvet cake crumbs (I used a whole 10" round cake)
8oz cream cheese
1 cup butter cream icing
(alternatively you can use one of those cans of premade cream cheese icing from the grocery store).

Mix together with your hands and refrigerate.

I melted a large bar of cadbury's milk chocolate in a double boiler, and used two spoons to cover my balls. I probably didn't use enough chocolate so they were sticking a lot. I don't like keeping extra chocolate in the house if you know what I mean!
The pink balls were melted strawberry chocolate chips from Ardkeen Food Stores.