Classic Cakes That Need Resurrecting

nightscotsman · May 8, 2003

Question: It calls for making two 9" layers and cutting them in half. Is there any reason that a person could not make 4 thin 9" layers (I have 8 -- yes 8 -- 9" layer pans, thanks to my great grandmother ), adjusting baking time, of course?

Technically you could, but I wouldn't. The thinner layers might be drier, and you would have more crust, which - unlike bread - is not the good part.

hjshorter · May 8, 2003

While I've never made an armadillo shaped red velvet cake, I did make an Elmo shaped red velvet cake for my daughter's birthday. The idea was the same -- cut into Elmo and you get a big chunk of red, Elmo flesh. ;).

Oooooh, I think I've hit upon Ian's cake for his second birthday... :biggrin: Is there an Elmo-shaped pan to be had somewhere? I know that you can get Blue from Blues Clues with the Wilton stuff at AC Moore.

Just reporting back - I wimped on the coconut cake for Ian's birthday because I remembered that my dad and brother don't like coconut. So he got a white cake with lemon curd filling and buttercream. He ate every bite and smeared the frosting in his hair. :smile:

claire797 · May 8, 2003

While I've never made an armadillo shaped red velvet cake, I did make an Elmo shaped red velvet cake for my daughter's birthday. The idea was the same -- cut into Elmo and you get a big chunk of red, Elmo flesh. ;).
Oooooh, I think I've hit upon Ian's cake for his second birthday... Is there an Elmo-shaped pan to be had somewhere? I know that you can get Blue from Blues Clues with the Wilton stuff at AC Moore.
Just reporting back - I wimped on the coconut cake for Ian's birthday because I remembered that my dad and brother don't like coconut. So he got a white cake with lemon curd filling and buttercream. He ate every bite and smeared the frosting in his hair.

Michael's Craft Store usually has a few different Elmo pans. There's an Elmo body and a big head.

Maggie, glad the cake turned out. Did you buy two 12 oz bottles of butter oil so that you could use a full two cups or did you buy one bottel and supplement with 4 ounces of regular oil? Could you REALLY taste the butter flavor? Not that it matters, since your advice is to cut the oil in half next time.

Do you have any left? Could you take a picture?

Jaymes · May 8, 2003

Jaymes:
He who his mother-in-law calls Impossible to Please Lou is still cutting little snicks off the cake. Actually, I immediately halved it and took it to appreciative neighbours. Talk about girlish figure concerns! Two cups of oil, two cups of sugar.
This cake is redder than a Valentine's day garter belt. And almost as expensive. An ounce of red food coloring was 2.69. The butter oil (where you told me it would be, Claire) was 2.29. Toss in the nuts and cream cheese, and you'd find something fetching on sale at Victoria's Secret.
Man, is it good! And so mysterious tasting. I haven't had a piece of Red Velvet Cake since the Ford adminstration, and I'd forgotten how good it is.
Let me share a few absent minded mistakes I made---no I could not work for Christopher Kimball!
I doubled the amount of cocoa...maybe a good idea. I, (How the hell did I do this? Cogitating quarks? ) forgot the butter in the frosting. I did, however,( forgetting I was supposed to be doing a test), threw a big glob of crema in with the cream cheese. Good.
The cake took longer than 40 minutes to bake...more like seventy. And next time, I'll cut down the butter-flavored oil by half. But not delete it:it's a good idea.
The nuts in the frosting/filling is a great idea.
Jaymes: Shoud I need a bigger pair of jeans by Friday, you're getting the bill!. This cake rocks.

Well, as I said, I haven't made it in ten years either. :laugh:

But I do recall being a smash hit at every party I took it to.

RE - the chocolate. It already calls for a little bit more than many Red Velvet Cake recipes. The point is to have a buttermilk-vinegar, kind of sweet and sour flavor, with an underlay of chocolate. I'm intrigued by the fact that you doubled it. Was the flavor a strong chocolate???

RE - the oil. So is your recommendation that next time you're only going to use half the TOTAL amount of oil for a total of 1 cup oil, or that you are going to use half the amount of BUTTERY oil, still putting in the total of the original 2 cups oil called for?

And lastly - I am really glad you liked it. I guess there is a reason why Red Velvet Cake furor swept the nation. I'm going to make it for my next party for sure. This thread has totally inspired me. :biggrin:

maggiethecat · May 8, 2003

Jaymes:

My mind was romping in some farther pasture of its own while I baked this, and I just plain screwed up on the chocolate. It wasn't deliberate, but it worked! Still buttermilky, but with maybe, a little more depth of flavor.

Oil: I'd use the full two cups, but only half a cup of the buttery version.

Note: This is the easiest cake recipe, with the best results, I've made in a long time.

Jaymes · May 8, 2003

Note: This is the easiest cake recipe, with the best results, I've made in a long time.

:rolleyes:

claire797 · May 8, 2003

Jaymes:
My mind was romping in some farther pasture of its own while I baked this, and I just plain screwed up on the chocolate. It wasn't deliberate, but it worked! Still buttermilky, but with maybe, a little more depth of flavor.
Oil: I'd use the full two cups, but only half a cup of the buttery version.
Note: This is the easiest cake recipe, with the best results, I've made in a long time.

Ah! Thanks for clarifying on the oil. I wasn't sure if you meant 1 cup total or 1 cup buttery + 1 cup regular.

elyse · May 8, 2003

Can we talk about red food coloring? What's the least nasty to use? Taste wise, I mean.

hjshorter · May 8, 2003

Can we talk about red food coloring? What's the least nasty to use? Taste wise, I mean.

I was wondering the same thing. Does it add anything to the taste or is it just for the color?

maggiethecat · May 8, 2003

Do you have any left? Could you take a picture?

It's dwindling rapidly. I left my camera at my sister in law's on Easter Day, and doubt that I'll get it back before the cakes's gone.

elyse · May 8, 2003

Can we talk about red food coloring? What's the least nasty to use? Taste wise, I mean.
I was wondering the same thing. Does it add anything to the taste or is it just for the color?

I always find that red leaves a taste.

claire797 · May 8, 2003

Can we talk about red food coloring? What's the least nasty to use? Taste wise, I mean.

It really does not have any taste when baked into cake. I've tasted it before in frostings, but never in a red velvet cake.

Edited May 8, 2003 by claire797 (log)

Jaymes · May 8, 2003

I'm pretty sure it's just for the unique color. When making this cake for "just us," I usually left it out.

But the color is such a distinctive part of the whole "mystique" thing, that I put it in whenever I made it to "carry," as we say in the South.

Jaymes · May 8, 2003

My recipe is about the same - but made with butter.
Red Velvet Cake...

In keeping with the e-bakeoff, I'd like to try this version as well. Maybe will do that next week.

elyse · May 8, 2003

So, you use liquid red for this?

claire797 · May 8, 2003

So, you use liquid red for this?

Yup. A whole freakin' bottle.

kitwilliams · May 11, 2003

I've just added a recipe to the archive for an awesome, moist marble cake. It's from a pamphlet put out by General Foods in 1941 (I mentioned this earlier in this thread) which pushes Swans Down Cake Flour. The technique used for the chocolate mixture is fun and interesting: you add baking soda to the melted chocolate/sugar/water mixture before adding it to part of the cake batter.

The pamphlet suggests frosting it with a Hungarian Chocolate Frosting which I made and it tasted just fine but it has egg yolks in it which are just stirred into the warm melted chocolate mixture. If anyone wants the recipe I'm happy to supply it as well, but your best ganache is an even better bet.

An awesome, classic layer cake which totally took my dad back to his youth.

Saffy · May 13, 2003

I love those old fashioned cakes. I bake them quite often. I have a recipe book here of my grandmothers ( 30's and 40's recipes ) that I use quite frequently

You will NEVER find a packet of cake mix in my pantry, I have never made a cake from a packet and I never will.

My current fav cakes are lumberjack cake ( a date and apple cake with a caramel and coconut topping) and good ole dundee cake which is also quite an old recipe.

My kids have never had a birthday party at Micky D's or any other place like that and deprived as they are, they never will.

Jaymes · May 13, 2003

What a wonderful thread... I swear it even smells good - or maybe that's just my imagination working overtime.

And the splendid names...

Brownstone Front Cake, Marble Cake, Lumberjack and Dundee...

I am determined to start at the beginning of this thread and bake my way south.

Thanks everyone for your contributions here, and Maggie - thanks to you especially for dreaming it up.

:rolleyes:

maggiethecat · May 13, 2003

I've just added a recipe to the archive for an awesome, moist marble cake.

Kit: Oh my gosh! Marble Cake? How could I have forgotten! Thank you. Next up.

Saffy: Word.

Jaymes: Mille mercis. And I have learned so much from this thread. Real cake. I admit it Makes Me Feel Old. When did making a simple cake disappear from a woman's bag of tricks? Or her CV.

I am grateful that my stylin' daughter isn't too proud to lick a beater.

"Licking a beater." I thnk that phrase has been retired from the language.

I admit I fool around a lot with daquoise and genoise and stuff. But I think, not for another few months. Like Jaymes, I might just bake this thread top to bottom.

Cake for dessert!

Edited May 13, 2003 by maggiethecat (log)

Jaymes · May 13, 2003

Here's another old family favorite that I've been cooking up for some thirty years. :biggrin:

Sugar Plum Cake

2 C self-rising flour

2 C sugar

1 C vegetable oil (won't go into the whole 'buttery flavor' thing again here)

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 t powdered cloves

1 t cinnamon

1 C chopped pecans

2 jars (small) plum baby food - it comes mixed with something; I think applesauce

Combine all ingredients by hand, mixing well.

Prepare bundt pan - grease well, and then, instead of flour, coat well with granulated sugar. Pour batter into pan, trying not to disturb sugar. Bake at 350º for 50-60 minutes.

Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan, and then turn out onto platter.

Make lemon glaze: 1 C sifted powdered sugar mixed with lemon juice to taste.

Glaze well-cooled cake.

:rolleyes:

Edited May 13, 2003 by Jaymes (log)

kitwilliams · May 13, 2003

1 C vegetable oil (won't go into the whole 'buttery flavor' thing again here)

Oh, please do Jaymes! :raz:

snowangel · May 13, 2003

I am grateful that my stylin' daughter isn't too proud to lick a beater.
"Licking a beater." I thnk that phrase has been retired from the language.

In my kids vocab.

Likewise, licking out the pan after making cooked frosting (see Burnt Sugar Cake). There's a reason I always make a double batch of frosting. Nothing better, for adult or child, to be frosting or cake batter from head to toe.

Peter, at age 3, accompanied me to the grocery. In the baking aisle, he noticed Cake Mixes. "Mom, what these is?" "Cake mixes, honey." "What do you mean?" "Where you cheat and just add oil and eggs and make a thing like a cake." "Olibe oil?" "Sort of, Peets." "Mommy, what a 'sorta cake'?" "A cake that presumes to be a cake but really isn't." "Mommy, what's presume?"

We bought the mix, and the canned frosting. After one bite, he asked "when can we make a real cake?"

In my house, by age 2, they were able to sit on the counter and know that when I said "3", they knew it meant matching the thingee on the Kitchenaide to the number 3.

Cake making. Not a lost art, at least among some of us.

And, cake, even sorta stale, crumbled in a bowl, with milk poured over, makes a great breakfast. Surely more wholesome than anything sugary that GM or Post puts out. It's all above love. :wub: :wub: :wub:

Edited May 13, 2003 by snowangel (log)

hjshorter · May 13, 2003

My current fav cakes are lumberjack cake ( a date and apple cake with a caramel and coconut topping) and good ole dundee cake which is also quite an old recipe.

Please put the Lumberjack Cake in the archive, if you have time. It sounds wonderful.

elyse · May 13, 2003

And what's Dundee? :blush:

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