I was thinking about the holidays and looking at recipes, both mine and others’ and realized that nearly every holiday/Christmas-themed cake involved heavy spices or peppermint/chocolate. I get it, those are traditional flavors, and very popular. I was looking for something that could be fun and lighter flavored, as a balance to all of these heavy, rich sweets. Coincidentally, I saw a video on Facebook from one of my favorite pages, Sugar Geek Show. She was talking about her new and improved white velvet cake recipe and a lightbulb went on. Visions of bright, pop-y colored layers of cake danced in my head.
I immediately decided on a red and green colored white velvet cake. Yes, I know red velvet cake exists, but it’s a dark brownish red (due to cocoa), and I wanted the flavor of the white velvet, so red-dyed white velvet cake. I followed the directions, weighing my ingredients carefully, and the batter looked lovely. I weighed the batter and divided it between two bowls, so each cake would be a different color. This is where I realized my error, one that would see my vision come crashing down around my ears: I’d forgotten that I’d used the last of my good, professional red color to make red fondant. All I had was the grocery store food color gels for red, and…well, I’m here to tell you it makes a difference. Just look.
So, instead of a pop of bright red and green I got…spumoni pink and green. I used as much of that gel as I dared (like half the little tube!), but still…pink. Okay, fine, lesson learned. I decided to just go ahead with this post, because at least someone could cringe laugh with me, and probably say “it’s not that bad” while really thinking “yep, she totally whiffed that one!” Also, I think it’s just as much fun to relate the fails (however big or small) as it is to relate the successes.
Anyway, back to the cake. Color aside, I had no idea what this tasted like, and so when I leveled the cakes, of course I had to test them out…I mean, that’s what a good baker does, right?? It was good, not a big heavy flavor at all, with a little bit of tang from the buttermilk. It has a pretty dense crumb, not as dense as pound cake, and really soft – hence the “velvet” name. The recipe calls for cream cheese frosting, and so I made my favorite frosting, and tried a scrap of cake with the plain frosting…it was too plain. The cake needed a bright flavor to lift it, and orange zest was just that note of brightness needed.
Still a little bitter from my coloring fail, I looked into my pantry for decoration inspiration, and decided red and green sanding sugar was the way to go. I’d seen so many cute cakes that had sanding sugar and sprinkles and other little decorative bits stuck to the frosting by the handful, and decided that was the way to go. There are no pictures of what happened, because it was a sanding sugar shit show, and I had to get it cleaned up before my preschooler decided it would be fun to make it worse right before going to school. Suffice it to say there was red sugar everywhere: on the floor, on the counter, on the cake stand, in the sink, in dishes, I even found some in my pants pockets. (how??) My cake does not have that polished, beautiful, cartoon pop-y look…it looks more like my preschooler did it, but I think it’s delightfully rustic and Christmassy, and that’s all that matters.
I hope you have good luck with your white (velvet) Christmas (cake), and just remember, rustic is a valid design choice.
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