♥ Day

I got this recipe off The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. Magnolia Bakery is one of the popular cupcakery stores in NYC, it boast delicious old fashioned desserts. It only got more popular when Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City) was sceen holding/eating a cupcake. I barely remember that seen but years back I've read alot of good things about Magnolia Bakery itself and since I live so far away. The next best thing is try out their book, hopefully it would taste the same as what they sell onsite.
I've tries different versions of Red Velvet before. The first time I actually did use this Magnolia Bakery version. Though I remember not using a cream cheese frosting but the roux buttercream version. My sister didn't care for it so do I, it taste like uhm...butter! I remember the first time I made cream cheese frosting was for the yummy Red Velvet Cupcakes from a British bakery that sells American cakes called Hummingbird Bakery. Something different is the Red Velvet Whoopie pie, its like eating a cookie/cake with your bare hands, its fun!
For this V-day though I want something more special and ever since I saw this Williams-Sonoma version I want to give it a try. And after seeing this, I really have to give it a try. Don't have a heart shaped pan but I really want to give this cake a try so for the first time, I tried my hands on carving the cake. It's messy and crumbs are every where! In the end, it seems like such a special cake since I put so much effort into it. In the Magnolia book, it specifies baking the cakes in 3 round cake pans but I only got two pieces so just divided the batter between the two and it turn out good. The cumbs are soft and tender as gently as possible I carved out the heart shape cakes and split each cake layer into 2 which leaves me with 4 yummy layers. The scraps gets blitz in the food processor giving me more than a handful of fluffy crumbs which would be use for the cake later.
While waiting for the lucious cream cheese frosting, I parked my cakes in the fridge. Making the cream cheese frosting is so easy and the best part is that it taste great! One thing I noticed is that in most recipes of the cream cheese frostings that I see, the confectioner's sugar that the recipe requires is sometimes as high as 5 CUPS! OMG! that is a LOT! No way that I'm going to use that much sugar in a single cake recipe. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. One of the most important step to avoid lumpy frosting is SIFT the confectioner's sugar. Yes its tiresome but once you've mixed in your sugar with the cream cheese/butter frosting if it turned out lumpy there is no other way to remove those lumps. Get the cake layers from the fridge and start layering the frosting with the cake. Since this makes the cake a bit high to secure it while frosting the outside, I put three skewers in the cake so as the cake layers wouldn't move as much. While the frosting is still soft and billowy quicky get a handful of the cake crumbs and secure them all around the cake. Its messy with crumbs going in all places but in the end it would work out great. I use pastry brush to brush off excess crumbs that have fallen on the cake platter. With the skewers still in the cake put the cake in the in the fridge and let it chill for several hours until the cake and icing feels much sturdier. Gently remove the skewers and with your clean fingers cover up the hole with few more cake crumbs. Grab a knife and fork, sit down and enjoy all your hardwork.

♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Valentines Day everyone !!! ♥ ♥ ♥

nikcreate

I'm a nine to five pencil pusher who loves to play with flour and paper during my free time. Dreams of going to Europe and eat croissants and make pastries all day long!

4 comments:

  1. Waaah. This post made me crave for a red velvet cake! It's my favorite! :)

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  2. it's so pretty! i smiled as soon as i saw it! mm and perfect for valentine's day.

    www.icyviolets.blogspot.com

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  3. ohhh I love love red velvet cake. that looks wonderful.

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  4. This is so beautiful. Love that you used crumbs :)

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