It started last year at Holiday Lanes, my team and another were competing against each other to win four rounds of bowling. We were all having a good time getting strikes, leaving open frames, picking up or missing the occasional split when the other team announced the birthday of one of their team mates. There was no singing, however they did bring a small round cake covered in white icing. After each of them had taken a piece they invited up to have some cake as well. The cake was a red velvet cake from King Soopers. When I tasted it I noticed that it had a hint coffee flavor in it and I knew then that I had to try and duplicate it. We finished the four rounds of bowling, thanked them for the cake and good time, and went home.
After that night I started looking for recipes to make red velvet cake. Before I found a recipe I though it would be hard, especially since the original red velvet recipes I heard used beet juice to to get the red coloring. That was until I found it was simply adding one to three table spoons of red food coloring to a buttermilk layer cake recipe.
Satisfied with the recipe that I had found I set off to King Soopers to gather the ingredients I needed to bake a cake. I probably spent an hour wandering the store looking for everything I needed. To my surprise, King Soopers does not carry cake flour, the store had many different brands of all-purpose and bread flour, however the cake flour I wanted was no where to be found. Disappointed because I had wasted at least half an hour scouring the shelves I left the baking aisle to gathering the rest of the ingredients. The rest of the ingreadients need were easy to find and only took me about 15 minutes to gather.
Once I got home, my next task was to clean up the kitchen because my parents never clean up after their own cooking. With the kitchen finally clean I set about measuring and mixing, I used regular all-purpose flour instead and hoped for the best. I some how thought I could make two round double layer cakes from the same batch, even though I only had two cake pans which resulted in me making two large round single layer cakes instead of two smaller double layers. The icing was perhaps the simplest though prehaps the messiest part of my project; a simple cream cheese icing made from one pound of powdered sugar and 16 ounces of cream cheese. Needless to say there was powdered sugar everywhere by the time I was finished. Once the cakes had cooled enough I spread the icing, wrapped them up, and I made sure the kitchen was spotless when I was done.
The following weekend I went to my grandfathers for a family dinner and I felt it was perfect opportunity to get an outside opinion on my baking skills. I had already tried a piece of my cake and I felt it tasted fine, however they say that it always tastes better when you make it yourself so I wanted someone elses opinion. Everyone there said the cake tasted fine if a little dense. I wasn't disappointed, it was after the first cake I had ever made from scratch.
Since my first attempt at cake baking I've learned that corn starch can be used to make a substitute cake flour and my cakes have gotten better in both texture and flavor. I've dabbled in baking chocolate cake as well as a strange recipe called Tomato Soup cake which uses a can of condensed tomato soup, both turned out nicely. My parents have suggested I take up a cooking degree however I don't think I would enjoy cooking as much if I did. While I might never take my baking to a professional level, I do have some advice for those who might; keep the egg beater on low while you add the powdered sugar.
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