Hello!!

It’s been a really long time since my last post but I’m finally able to spear some time to write up some recipes for you. I’ve been trying up some new recipes for my come back and I think this is by far the prettiest.

This recipe got me since the first time I saw it. The cake and the color just captivated me. I’ve gone a little away from the original recipe but it’s really easy. The only thing you need to watch out for is the pan you use. I’ve used a silicone small but tall cake pan, so it took longer than usual for the cake to cook, if you use a wider shorter pan you need to time the cake accordingly.

The key element in a velvet cake is undoubtly the buttermilk. It is what gives that full and soft feel. I can’t find ready-made buttermilk where I live so I prepare my own. 5 minutes before you start your preparations, put a tablespoon of vinegar in one cup of regular milk. I use white wine vinegar so that it doesn’t give a unique taste and color. Even in just 30 seconds you can see the change in the milk. It becomes almost like a clotted texture but not as dense, when you stir the milk, it will all come together to a form that is slightly denser than milk.

I’ve also added a simple syrup to the recipe to make my cake juicier, I think it worked out quite well too.

Here goes the cake recipe:

Ingredients for the cake batter:

1 + 1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of liquid red food coloring or 1 teaspoon of gel food coloring

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 pod vanilla bean

2 + ½ cups flour

1 + ½ granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cocoa

Just add the wet ingredients together and mix with a blender. Add the vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla in a large bowl and mix using an electric mixer. This is very easy but can get very messy too. The little splashes from the mixer stains anything it touches to be very careful.

In a smaller bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In three parts add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Try using a manuel whisk when mixing looks too messy. But you should be using the electric mixer in the end to make sure everything is mixed thoroughly.

Butter your cake pan and coat the butter with flour. I buttered my pan even though I was using a silicone one, because I didn’t want any chances of sticking.

In a pre-jheated oven bake for 40-50 minutes at 180°C. Again, If you’re using a deeper pan, this may take up to an hour. If this is the case you should have the pven at 170°C, to avoid the top part of the cake from burning.

After the time is up if you stick a tooth pick in the cake and it come out clean, take the cake out of the oven and just leave it by itself for about 10 minutes.

When the cake is moderately cool, take it out of the pan. I placed the cake on a cooling rack and place a large pan with tilted sides underneath.

In this stage you can check over you cake and if it needs to be trimmed from the underneath for a better presentation, you can level as much as you need.

While the cake still is in the cooling stage, I prepared the simple syrup for a softer and juicer texture.

Ingredients for the syrup:

1 part sugar

1 part water

Place the sugar and the water in a sauce pan over the stove. Don’t let it boil, just make sure all the sugar is dissolved in the water and the syrup is warm. This syrup is suitable for any kind of cake. But if you’re using the cake, make sure you put a little less sugar in your cake than it says in the recipe. In this recipe, the sugar amount is less because of the syrup. If you do not want to use syrup. You should be putting ¼ cups more sugar in your batter recipe.

Let the syrup cool just for a little bit. When your cake is still on the rack, pour the syrup first underneath your cake. Then turn it over and make sure the syrup covers every bit of the cake.

While the cake absorbs the syrup, it’s time to make the ganache.

Ingredients for the ganache:

125gr bitter chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

Put the cream in a microwavable bowl and heat it. Meanwhile, cut the chocolate in small pieces snd place them in a bowl. Take the cream from the microwave and pour over the chocolate. Stir with a small spatula until the chocolate is melted. Let it cool just a little bit.

While the cake is still on the cooling rack, pour the chocolate over the cake. You can use all the chocolate.

And voila! This is one good looking cake and I must say it was very moist too. Fair warning though, the food coloring gets everywhere and stains your tongue. I hope you love this cake as much as we did, and let me know how yours turn out if you try it too! Enjoy!