Devil in a Red Velvet Dress

I’m sitting on my bed eating the last slice(s) of frozen birthday cake. I’d stashed a few slivers of my ultra-rich devil’s food cake in the freezer in case I had a “chocolate emergency.” Guess what? For me, blogging about carob constitutes a two-slice chocolate emergency. So, for the second time in my life, I’m sitting on a bed eating cake.

The last time I did this, I was in Knoxville, Tennessee. I’d just returned to my hotel room after a tour of the historic downtown, which included a trip to MagPies Cakes. No one can resist the owner’s charms or baked goods and I left with a six-pack of iced red velvet cupcakes. When I asked my American friends what red velvet cake was, they told me it was basically a devil’s food with a couple of bottles of red food colouring thrown in for effect. Ya, right. I’ll save some for my pet polar bear.

Only they weren’t kidding. For some reason, putting a whackload of red dye in a dark cake is a tradition south of the Mason-Dixon line. After a little research, I found that beets were once a popular ingredient to sweeten cakes but over time, red dye replaced this finger-staining root vegetable. And so, unwittingly, I had made myself a Red Velvet birthday cake.

Since I’m hyped on chocolate and in a generous mood, I’ll share the recipe, which comes from Linda Carucci’s helpful and highly informative book Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks.

When making the cake, I couldn’t decide whether to go with the ganache or the fudge icing, so I split the difference and put ganache in between the layers and covered the whole mess with fudge icing. If this appeals to you, make half a recipe of each.

While this cake takes time to make and assemble, it does serve a dozen people, so you’ll have plenty to hide in the freezer in case of emergency.

Not-So-Red Devil’s Food Cake with Pick Your Own Icing
Printable recipe

Serves 12 to 16 (yeah, right)

Ganache

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter*
• 1 1/2 pounds semi- or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1. In a wide saucepan, over low heat, bring cream and butter just to a boil.
2. Turn off heat, add chocolate and rock pan gently to coat chocolate with cream.
3. Let stand for 5 minutes.
4. Whisk until smooth and then set aside, undisturbed until room temperature or until it has thickened enough to spread. This might require 10-20 minutes refrigeration.
5. When ready to ice the cake, whisk until smooth.

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 cup unsalted butter*, melted and cooled to room temperature
• 1 tsp pure vanilla
• 2/3 cup packed, finely grated raw beets (about 1 medium)

1. Preheat oven to 350F and set rack in bottom third of oven.
2. Butter and flour two 8-inch round pans and line with parchment. NOTE: This recipe calls for 2-inch high pans. Most pans are only 1 1/2″ high. If this is the case, you will have an extra 2 cups of batter. Use this to make cupcakes. Trust me on this. I ignored this note and the cakes overflowed.
3. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl to combine well.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs lightly and then whisk in buttermilk.
5. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour in the buttermilk mixture and stir to combine.
6. Slowly whisk in the melted butter.
7. Stir in the vanilla.
8. Stir in the beets.
9. Pour into the pans (making cupcakes if necessary!) To prevent the cakes from rising high in the centre, pull the batter to the sides.
10. Bake 30-35 minutes or until the centres springs back when tapped.
11. Cool for 10 minutes. Invert on a cooling rack, remove parchment and leave upside down to cool completely.

Chocolate Fudge Icing

• 1 cup unsalted* butter, melted
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 2/3 cup hot strong coffee, espresso or hot milk (or a combination)
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
• 6 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp pure vanilla

1. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, salt, and hot beverage of choice.
2. Whisk in cocoa.
3. Add the icing sugar and stir carefully with a wooden spoon until smooth.
4. Stir in vanilla.
5. Cover and set aside.

Assembly

1. Split cakes in half horizontally.
2. Place one layer, cut side up on serving dish. Spread with about 1 cup of filling.
3. Repeat with layers, alternating cut side up and down as you go.
4. Frost top and sides with remaining ganache or frosting.

* While the recipe calls for unsalted butter, I didn’t have any on hand and used salted. It tasted fine just the same.