Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake – Holly Rachel Bakes

My Beautiful Granny – 90 years young

4 Tiered!

Red Velevt Cake – Holly Rachel Bakes

Red Velvet Cake

Maggie the 4 month old Jackapoo pup

Hello to my lovely readers! It has CERTAINLY been a while! I’m so sorry for the huge gap in time since my last post. I have still been baking when I can, however things have been rather busy recently with the addition of our new Jackapoo puppy – Maggie! She is only 4 months old and has been full on since the get go! I’m talking night time toilet training, teaching commands and mastering the art of ‘fetch’! But she is so lovely and I’ve been moaning about wanting a dog for the last 6/7 years so it’s about time 🙂

So I have finally gotten round to sitting down at my computer and blogging a few of the recipes I have managed to find the time to cook 🙂 And the return of the Great British Bake Off is enough to get anyone back into the swing of things 🙂

The first is a 4 tiered red velvet cake that I recently baked for my lovely Granny’s 90th birthday party. It was the first time I had made a red velvet cake and I have to say I was surprised at how easy it was. The only issue I had was fitting in Maggie’s walk and icing the 4 tiers all before 1pm (taking into account baking and cooling time of the cakes!)

We had an afternoon tea round at my mum and dad’s house to celebrate and ate lots of cakes, sandwiches and drank Pimms whilst listened to Scottish music in the garden – wonderful!

The cake was so huge that I had to take it in to work the next day and fed it to my youth theatre (without telling them about the secret ingredient – BEETROOT!!) They ate up the cake happily whilst trying to guess the mystery ingredient, one lad even called his Nan for a clue as to what it was. Once they found out – they suddenly seemed suspicious of the giant red coloured cake and weren’t sure if they really did enjoy it after all…

Why not give it a try and see what you think!?…You won’t regret it 🙂

Ingredients:

For the Sponges:

• 250g Butter
• 200g Dark Chocolate (broken into pieces)
• 500g Plain Flour
• 500g Golden caster sugar
• 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarb
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 200g Natural yogurt
• 400g cooked beetroot (in its own juices, not vinegar)
• x2 28ml red food colouring

For the Frosting:

• 200g Full fat cream cheese
• 250g Butter (softened)
• 40g Icing Sugar
• x2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Make the first batch of sponges by greasing and lining 2 x 20cm round tins. Gently melt half the butter and chocolate together in a saucepan. Mix half the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb and ¼ tsp salt in a large mixing bowl. Whizz one egg and half the yogurt and beetroot in a food processor or blender until fairly smooth. Put the kettle on.
2. Tip the beetroot mix into the dry ingredients along with the melted chocolate mixture and 150ml boiling water, then stir to combine. Stir in half the food colouring, if using, and divide the mixture between the tins. Bake for 25 mins until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Leave the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely.
3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 to make 2 more sponges or if you’re lucky enough to have 4 x 20cm sandwich tins you can bake in a big batch all at once.
4. To make the frosting, briefly beat together the soft cheese and butter, then beat in the icing sugar and vanilla. Use a little to sandwich the cooled cakes together, then swirl the rest all over the sandwiched cakes and decorate with sweets, if you like. Sit the cake somewhere cool (not the fridge) to set a little before serving.

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think 🙂

Holly xx

 

Baby Shower Cupcakes – with butter cream

Baby shower cupcakes

My lovely friend Sarah is due on January 15th and as such we threw her a baby shower to celebrate. I made some baby shower cupcakes in pink and blue as they are having a surprise! The recipe was really easy to make but the mini baby prams on top did give me a little stress in the morning – cutting out mini bits of icing with hot hands = bad idea! But we got there in the end and it was a lovely day – lots of baby related activities and yummy food 🙂 I also watched a Christmas Marry Berry cooking programme over the holidays and learnt a nifty trick for getting equally sized cupcakes that changed my life! Scroll down to learn the secret! 🙂

 

Enjoy!

Holly x

Ingredients:

• 115g softened butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 115g self raising flour
• 1 tablespoon milk

For the frosting:

• 175g unsalted butter softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 280g icing sugar (sifted)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Put 12 paper cases into a cupcake tray.
2. Put butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Sift in the flour and use a metal spoon to fold the mixture together. Add the milk to loosen the mixture.
3. Here is the secret trick you have all been waiting for….Use an ice cream scoop (with a spring handle) to scoop out mixture from the bowl, flatten the mixture out against the side of the bowl and simply drop the mixture into the cases using the sprung handle – GENIUS!!
4. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Place on wire rack to cool.
6. To make the frosting, put the butter and vanilla extract in a bowl and use an electric hand whisk to beat until pale and very soft. Gradually add the icing sugar, whisking well after each addition. Add your required colouring – I used gel colouring as it stops the butter cream from becoming to sloppy.
7. Spoon the frosting into a piping bag, fitted with a medium star nozzle and pipe frosting onto the cupcake – starting from the outside of the cake.
8. Roll out white sugar icing and cut out 2 medium circles and 2 small circles. Cut 1 medium circle in half and the other into quarters. Using water, stick 1 half to 1 quarter, to make the pram. Add the 2 small circles as the wheels and decorate as you like.
9. Enjoy! x