Red Velvet Cake

Elegance and grace are the names that I would like to use as synonyms for this cake. Its sheer beauty is strikingly enough for the crowd to woo your baking skills.

However, it doesn't really need that much for care to bake this. All you need is a little bit of patience and of course the most important ingredient of all – Love

You can bake this for anniversaries, birthdays and even Valentine’s Day.

Few things to remember: I used something that I would like to call a “Mock Cream Cheese”. 

However please feel absolutely free to use cream cheese frosting instead of my mock cream cheese. 

Living in a place of limited supply, I do need to make adjustments, thereby trying to replicate.

If you are not fond of cream cheese, it’s perfectly okay to just use butter cream. Again, I used an egg less version for the sponge, you can always opt for the regular sponge.

For the butter cream I land up using the same amounts of butter to confectioner’s sugar, however, if you wish you can always use more but I do not recommend using less.

For the cake:

1 cup flour

2tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 cup plain bottled soda water

100 gms softened butter

1 can sweetened condensed milk

¼ cup red food color

Sift the baking powder, soda, flour, cocoa powder and salt and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until it’s light, fluffy and pale. Add the condensed milk and combine. Alternately, starting with the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and the cup of soda. Sometimes you might need a little extra soda; the batter should be dropping consistency.  Mix the color once all the ingredients are properly combined.

Bake this in a round loose bottomed 8 inch cake tin for about 45-50 minutes. Do check the doneness after 45 minutes. Depending on the oven, the time may vary.

Once done, let it cool for about 15 minutes before cutting the cake in three equal portions for the icing. Let it cool completely.

For the filling:

100grams butter

100 grams icing sugar

¼ cup melted cheese

Beat the softened butter and the sifted icing sugar until its extremely pale, thick and fluffy. It should take about a good 10-15 minutes to achieve this.

For the caramel:

I find it particularly difficult to explain how to make any decorations using caramel. I used a cup of castor sugar with a tad bit of water. Once it started becoming amber, I added red food color to it.

I made the rings on a silicone baking sheet and while it was still a little soft, I peeled it off and molded it around the cake.

It doesn’t really add much to the flavor of the cake but it definitely gives it sheer chic elegance!

Assembly:

Spread a layer of cheese butter cream on the cake slice. Sandwich it with the next layer repeating the same. Top it with the last layer of cake and spread the icing evenly on the whole cake, covering nooks and crannies. Once evenly covered with butter cream, mold the caramel rings onto it. Set it in the fridge for few minutes in case the butter cream becomes too soft. 

Honey Praline Cake

No matter what I try to do with my spare time, my heart always gives in completely to baking more than anything else. I used this cake as an excuse to celebrate a dear one’s birthday. However, on an honest note, I was keener on the cake more than the actual birthday.

I made this using my egg-less cake recipe but you can alter it and use the normal sponge cake recipe. Just add the honey to the usual sponge cake recipe.

I used cashews while making the praline; you can always almonds or peanuts in the recipe.

For the cake:

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 cup plain bottled soda water

100 gms softened butter

1 can sweetened condensed milk

50 gms honey

Sift the baking powder, soda, flour and salt and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until it’s light, fluffy and pale. Add the condensed milk and combine. Alternately, starting with the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and the cup of soda. Sometimes you might need a little extra soda, the batter should be dropping consistency.  Mix the honey once all the ingredients are properly combined.

Bake this in a round loose bottomed 8 inch cake tin for about 45-50 minutes. Do check the doneness after 45 minutes. Depending the oven, the time may vary.

Once done, let it cool for about 15 minutes before cutting the cake in three equal portions for the icing. Let it cool completely.

For the Icing:

100 gms softened butter

50 grams honey

100 gms sifted icing sugar

2-4 tbsp milk

Beat the butter, honey and the sifted icing sugar until fluffy and very pale. The color should be whitish yellowy. Set aside.

For the praline:

100 gms castor sugar

¼ th cup water

Handful of Toasted cashews or any nut of your choice

Add the sugar and water to a pan and mix until it’s completely combined. Put it on the high flame and wait until the mixture starts bubbling. Let it bubble away vigorously until the color turns deep amber yellow. Toss in the nuts and pour the mixture on a silicone mat. Let it set completely before you try to peel it off.

Once cooled, beat the praline disc with a rolling pin until you have manageable shards. Using a food processor, make it almost to a powder. Here I say almost and not powder because I want it to have few pieces here and there to give it a texture. However you will notice that once you grind it in a food processor, there will be a powdery dust on the bottom. We need that dust as we are going to fill it in between the layers.

Assembly:

Spread a layer of butter cream on the cake slice and sprinkle it with the fine praline dust. Sandwich it with the next layer repeating the same. Top it with the last layer of cake and spread the icing evenly on the whole cake, covering nooks and crannies. Once evenly covered with butter cream, sprinkle the cake generously (on all sides) with the rough and uneven bits and pieces of the praline dust. Set it in the fridge for few minutes in case the butter cream becomes too soft. 

This strikingly elegant, almost artistic cake z ready to eat :)