Christmas Red Velvet Cake

This was a fun cake to make, I have to admit that I did make this into cupcakes instead because I didn't want to get stuck with a really rich, double layer cake only half eaten. I also wanted to get this posted for you guys in case you're interested in trying this for a Christmas dessert.

I started out just as the recipe stated. Since I didn't have any cake flour I just sifted my normal flour 4x instead. (I find that the more you sift the fluffier your batter turns out.)

I loved the buttermilk mixture, it was fun to see the little reaction between the baking soda and the vinegar.

And I just alternated the dry ingredients with the wet mixture three times. And my batter turned out beautiful! It was so light and fluffy.

Now the biggest thing for me was getting the color right. I didn't want it to turn out pink so I went to Joann's and picked out a tub of Red-Red and Burgundy. I mixed them 50/50 which was about 1 ounce of food coloring in total. (I definitely recommend that you get a gel food coloring because the liquid ones tend to make your batters or icings runny and changes the flavor too much.) Also when I mixed the food coloring + cocoa into the batter I used a spatula to mix it to keep from "overbeating" it.

Also even though I work with food coloring all the time and was as neat as possible I still ended up a victim of the red. So I suggest you wear a pair of gloves while you work with the food coloring so you don't have red hands for the next few days. If you get some on you counters or mixers--squirt some liquid dish detergent on it and rub it out with a paper towel!

After that I scooped the batter into my muffins tins, the recipe made 20 muffins.

And then I cooked them at 350 for about 25 minutes. (Since I cooked 2 trays at once it was a little bit longer.)  When I pulled them out I let them cool in the pan for about 20 minutes and then I moved them to a cooling rack for another 20 minutes.

I was surprised that she didn't mention this in the instructions, but when you're icing anything you need to make sure your cake is completely cool! Especially if you're making a double layer cake. If not, the icing will start to push out in the center and it will look like your cake is busting at the seams...and no amount of icing on the outside rim will fix that. So the moral is to give your cake time to cool before you add the icing! I got a little crazy and did some the normal cream cheese color and then for the other half, dyed the icing green!

After frosting all those cupcakes I did notice that the frosting was getting a little soft, so I put them in the fridge for 20 minutes and then pulled one out to taste. And it was delish. It was really moist and my knife cut through it really easily. This is definitely a keeper.