I love love love red velvet cakes. After cheesecakes, it is my all time favourite kind of cake. A bit of trivia for you...red velvet cakes are actually really rich chocolate cakes. Yep! If I don't add the red colour, you'd never know your eating one! In olden days the reaction of unprocessed cocoa powder with the buttermilk acids would give the cake a reddish tinge. Ofcourse nowadays we use food colouring for the desired effect.
It was mum's 50th birthday & I wanted to bake something really special. So I decided I'd make a red velvet cake and go further & ice it with fondant. I have never used fondant in my life so I did a lot of research before attempting it. The results were beautiful ofcourse, and I would definitely encourage you to try. But before you do, please read my two cents on using fondant. You will thank your stars later.
2 1/2 cups flour
1tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp red food colouring
A pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and grease cake tin.
In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa podwer and salt. In a small cup mix food colouring with 1tsp water to form a paste.
In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together till creamy and incorporated. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla essence. Add one third of the flour mixture, beat well, then add one third of the buttermilk. Repeat this step till the last of the flour and buttermilk are incorporated.
Now add the red colour paste. In a small bowl add the baking soda. Now hold this bowl on top of your main cake batter and then pour the vinegar. The mixture will fizz and may overflow, which is fine as it will fall in your cake mix. Now pour this vinegar mix to the cake batter and stir well to combine.
Pour in cake tin, and bake for approx. 20mins. Insert a toothpick to the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, its done. Cool the cake completely before frosting. Traditionally this cake is iced with a cream cheese frosting, but since I'm also using fondant, I'm going to stick to a buttercream frosting which forms the perfect crumb coat.
For the frosting:
100gms white chocolate
100 gms unsalted butter
50gms icing sugar
1 tbsp Raspberry essence (optional)
Mix butter and sugar till smooth and creamy. Add in melted white chocolate and raspberry essence, till spreadable consistency.
Now comes the tricky bit.
Spread this icing on the cake and make it as smooth as possible. This icing forms the crumb coat or the glue between your cake and fondant. Take a flat knife and scrape of any excess. You should aim for a thin, even coat.
Chill the cake, and let the icing set and harden. Remove the cake from the fridge 15mins before you plan to use the fondant, just to get the cake to room temperature.
Now to the fondant. Just knead, roll & coat.
I wish it were that simple. There are so many aspects to keep in mind that it deserves another blog entry. Please read my post on what to do with fondant. I also referred to this & this video to help me out. You can also add colour to a portion of your fondant (like I did) to add some colour & design to the cake.
And sprinkles always makes the world good :)
