Blue Velvet Cake

BLUE VELVET CAKE

Blue Velvet seems like the perfect title to a jazzy poem. And with that being said...

Blue skies turn into blue nights.

Blue lows, blue heights.

Your favorite color is blue right?

Blue Jays fly with blue kites.

White house draped in blue lights.

America, the glue right?

Blue Velvet, goodnight.

Straight off the DOME! I didn't call to this poetry game, it called to me! Okay, okay... I'm done. So any who seeing as how I had a few blue velvet cakes on the agenda - I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to share with you all a Blue Velvet Cake recipe.

This recipe is super easy. it's actually very similar to my standard cake recipe just with added cocoa powder. So some of you avid bakers may already be partial to the process. I needed to make enough batter for three 1/4 sheet cakes, so I quadrupled the recipe which you'll notice in the video. I thought it would be cool to show you how I make larger cake orders. I just pull out both mixers, clear some space and gather my mise en place (whoa took me back to culinary school).

When baking larger batches quality control is so important since it's easy to go slightly off with a step. So, I divvy up the ingredients between two mixers, then combine them at the end. Such a time saver in comparison to what I used to do. I used to make 1 batch of cake batter at a time. As you can imagine, I was baking from sunrise to sunset. For all of you lovely Home Chef's who are interested in the larger recipe I'll be posting both. Give it a try and enjoy!

Blue Velvet Cake

Servings: 2 9" Round Pans or 1/4 Sheet Cake

*Regular Batch Recipe:

1/2 C Butter (softened)

1 1/2 C Sugar

2 Lg Eggs

1/2 C Oil

1 tbsp Cocoa Powder

2 1/2 tbsp Wilton Gel Dye in Royal Blue

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tbsp Vinegar

2 1/2 C Cake Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 C Buttermilk

1 tsp salt

Servings: 1 1/2 Sheet Cakes or About 9 9" Round Cakes or Many Many Cupcakes

Quadrupled Batch Recipe:

2 C Butter (softened)

6 C Sugar

8 Eggs

2 C Oil

4 tbsp Cocoa Powder

4 tbsp Wilton Gel Dye in Royal Blue

3 tbsp Vanilla Extract

4 tbsp Vinegar

10 C Cake Flour

1 tbsp + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda

1 tbsp + 1 tsp Salt

4 C Buttermilk

Cream Cheese Frosting: Tutorial

1/2 C Butter

4 C Powdered Sugar

8 oz Cream Cheese

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. In a large mixer with paddle attachment - beat the butter and sugar together for 3 minutes or until combined. Add eggs one at a time and mix for 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy.

2. In a separate bowl, combine cocoa powder, food color and vanilla extract. In the video you'll see me add the gel color to the oil...you also see what happens as a result of this. Don't do it that way unless you want have a mini experiment for yourself. Add this to the butter and sugar mixer and toss in the vinegar.

3. In another mixing bowl, sift together cake flour, baking soda, and salt. Add this dry mixture to the wet mixture a little bit at a time with the buttermilk. If doing the small batch, add about 1/2 cup of flour to the mix, then a half of buttermilk (allow to mix for 4 seconds). Do this until you've incorporated all ingredients. If making the larger batch, add 1 cup of flour at a time with 1 cup of buttermilk at a time.

4. Bake at 350 degrees. For cupcakes bake for 17 minutes. For 9 inch cakes bake for 25 minutes. For larger cakes, begin to check for doneness at 45 minutes by sticking a toothpick into center. If you're cake needs to bake longer and you're worried about it browning just cover with foil and allow to finish baking.