Red Velvet Cake for my Daughter's 21st and Grand Daughter's 5th Birthday

[kathrynn]

When I made this cake here....I just used the 1 1/2 cups of regular oil. It tasted fine. Maybe not as rich as back in the day....but passed the family test. Baking to me is almost like doing chemistry. Lol....try not to mess with the ingredients too mucn.

I agree....the praline pecans would be amazing on the top of cream cheese icing! Yummm!

 

[kathrynn]

I can't believe I missed this post. Red Velvet Cake from scratch, Bravo Lady Kat!

Maybe try butter flavoring, should be on the shelf next to the vanilla extract. There is also a vanilla, butter & nut flavoring.

butter.JPG

• candycoated
• Feb 4, 2013

Lady Mel....have you ever tasted a butter-nut cake and icing! When I was a kid...our neighbors made them. Omgoodness! She said she used the recipe from the box of flavoring.

 

[mdboatbum]

I was holding my tongue, but I gotta say it...

When I make cakes I use real butter, cream it with the sugar first, then add eggs, then all the rest of the ingredients in the order they should be added. The texture and flavor is always fine. Is it really necessary to do all the fancy stuff to the butter? Even with cake mixes I sub real butter to doctor it up, just let it get room temp and whip it, sub milk for water,add the eggs, then the box mix. Works fine, and people think I made it from scratch!

This recipe is an oil based chiffon cake. Different animal. Doing "all the fancy stuff" with the butter IE, clarifying it, is just to make it behave more like oil, which is the secret to the moistness in this recipe. However, having made this recipe (an almost identical one my wife found) I can tell you all the fancy stuff isn't necessary at all. She's used regular oil resulting in a DELICIOUS, moist cake. As for the flavor from the food dye, you can get powdered food coloring or gel, which are supposed to be flavor free. Or, you can just skip it all together. It'll be a light tan color, but the flavor and texture will be just as good. And by good, I mean FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!! This is really one of the best cakes I've ever had, and the first one my wife ever made completely from scratch.

 

[candycoated]

Lady Kat, if I have tasted one, I didn't pay attention to the name. oops!

And after I posted about the clarified butter, I started to think about what cakes I have actually baked from scratch... My experience lies in bundt cakes. I love a dense cake topped with fresh fruit in their juices! I think all the fluffy cakes I've made were from box mixes. So my bad, please carry on, I'm listening!

 

[chef jimmyj]

The reason I would be hesitant on using whole butter over clarified is it is replacing oil in the recipe. Clarified butter is just straight oil and an easy swap out. But whole butter still has the water in it and depending on how much can effect your recipe quality and results. With baking I do not play too much with the recipes, due to the very tight formulas that need to be followed......but if you knew the water vs fat content and adjusted for it, whole butter can give you a richer flavor than clarified butter...

Here is just a bit of info....American Whole Butter by law has to be at least 80% Butterfat, the remaining is usually 15% Water and 5% Milk Solids. So it would not be hard to figure out what adjustments to make. Salted butter will typically 1.5-3% Salt. So if baking with Salted Better, leave the salt out of the recipe...JJ