Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I decided to have my monthly supermarket trip to be at Landmark Trinoma last week. I do my grocery shopping monthly to buy in bulk and save on gas (parking, merienda, etc). I usually do this monthly ritual in Robinson's Bulacan where it's closer to home. This month though, since I have time to spare after my monthly salon visit, I decided to go to Landmark instead.

Did I make the right decision? Well, if finding different liquid food coloring is an indicator, then it's a big YES! Landmark also carries several cake decorating supplies (sprinkles, chocolate chips) at very affordable prices. And they have a good selection of healthy stuff that I hoarded (spinach pasta, whole wheat spaghetti, whole peeled tomatoes, diced tomatoes, all kinds of canned tomatoes).

I have always wanted to make Bakerella's Red Velvet Cake but discouraged because I do not know where to get liquid food coloring. The only ones I have and I know are the icing coloring pastes from Wilton and Americolor. I must've been really lucky last week to find McCormick's liquid food coloring - in red, violet, blue and green. Yes, I bought one of each color :-)

Here is the recipe:

Red Velvet Cake from Bakerella.com

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 oz. red food coloring

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans.
3. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
4. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
6. Pour into cake pans and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
8. After about ten minutes, remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. I also cover in plastic wrap while the cakes cool.
9. Then make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 cups confectioners’ sugar

1. Sift sugar and set aside.
2. Beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla.
3. Then, add the sugar in batches. Scrape down the sides in between each addition.
4. And frost away.

A nice, bold red dome :-)

Red, but not velvety, hands (be careful when handling food coloring!)

As an ode to old-school Merced bakeshop birthday cakes, I made old-fashioned florets and roses in classic red. My friend, Mai, and myself love to reminisce those huge white birthday cakes from Merced. The kind that your mom bought you for every birthday you celebrate. The kind with royal-icing florets :-) Don't you just love to scoop Merced icing into a plate and eat that with a huge glass of Coke? Heaven!

Roses and florets

Red gooey-ness

One thing to note about cream cheese frosting is that it melts a lot quicker than ordinary buttercream. Make sure you put this in the ref when you're not ready to serve yet. In my case, I transported the cake to my aunt's house for merienda. Took me 5 minutes to get there. With the Philippine humidity and weather on Holy Week, my flowers wilted in as little as 3 minutes after placing the cake in the buffet table.

Pawis rating: 2 of 5 very easy!