Red Velvet Cookies and a Love Story

Ah, Valentine's Day. Love is in the air and red velvet - or anything red or heart-shaped for that matter - is selling like hotcakes.

I don't know about you, but for the longest time I had mixed feelings about Valentine's Day. Considering my Facebook status had long been "single" (or otherwise "complicated") for the latter part of my 20's, I guess you could say I was a little bit jaded. But February 14th, 2010 completely changed my perspective on the holiday.

People always say that you find love when you stop looking, and I couldn't agree more. I used to think that phrase meant you had to completely give up first, or just not appear to be looking, but neither of these are true. Without going all Tony Robbins on you, it finally dawned on me that I had to stop looking outwards, and instead look inwards and try to be the right person for someone else. I made lots of lifestyle changes and lots of decisions. None of it was easy, but had I not gone through that process I'd probably still be bitter, party of one.

Now fast forward to Valentine's Day last year. It was Sunday and I'd gone to the 6pm service at Buckhead Church. My good friend Julie, as cute as she is, brought us all little Valentine's treats. After service, she asked if I wanted to go to a Fusion event (a gathering for non-marrieds at Buckhead Church). Now despite my newfound optimism, something about being at a singles function on Valentine's Day didn't sound too appealing to me. But since it was Julie that was asking, and she'd already bribed me with candy, how could I say no?

Although I was skeptical, that was the very day and the very place that I met Gabe - the love of my life. At first I was certain that he wasn't interested, but fortunately for me, he was. Granted it took him a little while to friend me on Facebook let alone ask for my number, but before long we were inseparable. Where and when I least expected it, I found love and I couldn't be happier.

So you're probably wondering what exactly this has to do with the red velvet cookies pictured above. Well, not quite much to be honest. But its Valentine's Day, and what goes better with a love story than some red velvet cookies (sorry they aren't heart shaped). These Red Velvet Black and White Cookies came from a Rachael Ray recipe and they were actually quite good. The recipe is really straightforward, but I'd recommend preparing the pans with grease and flour, as by just using parchment paper my cookies seemed to stick a little to the paper. Also, don't try and add extra hot water to the icing than the recipe calls for...its much easier to spread on when its thick.

To all of you, regardless of your status, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day, full of love...and lots of red velvet.

UPDATE: Gabe proposed and I said yes (of course)!! We've entered Crate&Barrel's Ultimate Wedding Contest for a chance to win a 100K wedding. Its a long shot, but worth a try. Please vote for us here: http://www.ultimateweddingcontest.com/entry/126647. If we win, you know we will have the most ginormous and tasty red velvet wedding cake ever!

Quite a Doozie

Doozie (also doozy): Something that is extraordinary. Often used in the context of troublesome, difficult or problematic, but can be used positively as well.

As a kid I always loved going to Great American Cookie Company and getting a Double Doozie cookie. Nothing was better than a generous helping of frosting sandwiched between two freshly baked cookies.

Now one could infer that Great American Cookie Company coined the name "Double Doozie" because it is in fact, wonderful and extraordinary, but I beg to disagree. I like to think that this cookie originated after someone was having a horrendous, albeit "doozie" of a day. One of those days when you feel like you just can't... possibly... make... one... more... decision.

Do I want a cookie? Yes. Do I want cake? Yes. Do I want an entire vat of icing? Yes. Indulgence kicks in and before you know it, you're sitting with an empty pint of ice cream, spoon-in-hand, wondering why you feel left unsatisfied. Yes, one of those kinds of days.

'Tis the Season (for Red Velvet)

I can't think of a better time of year to make red velvet. If you're looking for some holiday baking inspiration, I've included links to some fun red velvet recipes. I haven't been able to try them all, but can certainly vouch for the sources: from Southern Living, Paula Deen and a few of my favorite baking bloggers. These recipes are sure to get you right into the holiday spirit:

Photo: Jennifer Davick; Styling: Buffy Hargett

Red Velvet Brownies
Red Velvet Bread Pudding
Red Velvet Soufflés w/ Whipped Sour Cream
Red Velvet Trifle
Red Velvet Torte w/ White Truffle Frosting
Red Velvet Cheesecake
Red Velvet Fudge
Red Velvet Peppermint Cake
Red Velvet Angel Food Cake

But say you don't feel like baking. How about cozying up next to the fire with a warm cup of Red Velvet Hot Cocoa?

Or maybe you're having guests over for breakfast and want to whip up a simple holiday inspired treat? Just make a batch of my red velvet pancakes and buy a few of these cute little mitten pancake molds from Crate&Barrel (for less than $5 each). Pipe some cream cheese frosting onto the bottom of the mittens, and voila: red velvet pancake mittens!

Baking Away the Calories (Plus a Giveaway)

In what seems like eons ago in the blogosphere, I aksed my readers what I should bake next and red velvet donuts were the clear winner.

I started with these cute little mini donut pans from Amazon and figured that by using them I would avoid burning myself with grease (highly probable) and dodge any excess, unnecessary calories. I quickly learned, however, that the calories are in fact my favorite part of the donut.

So I am posting this recipe with a caveat: if you are really craving a donut, I suggest eating a real doughnut (yes, different spelling). Preferably one with actual dough that has been submerged and deep fat fried in a massive vat of grease. Yes, it won't be the healthiest thing, but it can't be much worse than eating 12 baked mini donuts in a single sitting. Right?

But now onto the fun stuff! To apologize for being such a slacker on my postings of late, I've decided to give away two brand-new mini donut pans so all you health conscious folks can make baked donuts of your own! To enter, simply comment on this post with the name of your favorite holiday dessert (and it doesn't have to be red velvet). Deadline to enter is 5pm EST on December 13th has passed. One lucky winner will be chosen at random using random.org and announced on this post.

And the lucky winner is: Jainy! She was the third person to comment on this post with the name of her favorite holiday dessert. Jainy, please send an email to christina@velveteenbaker.com with your full name and mailing address.

 








Baked Red Velvet Donuts
Modified from Sprinkle Bakes

Donut batter:
2 c all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 c buttermilk
1 t vanilla extract
1 t red food coloring
1 T natural cocoa powder, not dutch-processed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray donut pan with nonstick cooking spray. In large mixing bowl, sift together all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a paste with the cocoa and red food coloring. Add buttermilk, eggs, vanilla extract, butter and red paste mixture and beat until just combined.

Fill each donut cup approximately 3/4 of the way full. Bake 5-8 minutes or until the top of the donuts spring back when touched. Let cool in pan for 4–5 minutes before removing. Finish donuts with vanilla glaze. Donuts are best served fresh.

Vanilla glaze:

2 T hot water
2 c confectioner’ s sugar
1 T milk (I substituted buttermilk since it was all I had)
½ t vanilla extract

In small bowl, stir together all ingredients until sugar is completely dissolved. Use immediately to glaze donuts. You can either toss them in or dip just the tops. If the glaze starts to harden you can add more hot water.

Red Velvet Fever

DSCN0005, originally uploaded by Velveteen Baker.

At what point should I start worrying about my red velvet addiction? Truth be told, I actually considered buying two boxes of these.

"So My Chocolate Should Have a Temper???" And Other Baking Discoveries

I'm getting ready to leave for Cambodia in two weeks and promised some friends I would make them some more red velvet cake truffles before I left.

But wait, these cake truffles, well...they look just like your cake balls?

Ah, you are quite right! Needless to say, I was bringing said cake truffles to my production team at church. And although it may seem silly, I felt that cake 'truffles' were much more PC than cake 'balls'. Am I right?

While my last recipe went over quite well, I didn't think the chocolate bark from Kroger was befitting of the title truffle, so I decided to use a higher quality chocolate. For this task, no 'chocolate flavored candy' would do.

Actually I just happened to have some bars of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate on hand, so I figured it couldn't be that complicated. And I was right...at first. I used a double boiler and melted the chocolate bars (it took me a total of 8 bars). I pulled my red velvet cake balls out of the freezer, dipped each in the chocolate and then laid them gently onto a fresh sheet of parchment. Easy-peasy. The Ghirardelli chocolate made a marked improvement in the flavor and they looked pretty good too. I took them into church and to work the following Monday. They received rave reviews and a few people even expressed interest in buying some over the holidays and for a wedding.

The following morning however, I woke up and my beautiful cake balls, err, truffles looked like this (pictured below). I didn't refrigerate them and they were stored in a sealed container. What could I have done wrong?

These truffles had a bad temper!

As it turns out, chocolate should be tempered when used for coating or dipping. Yes, I had no idea what that meant until I Googled it. Those heinous looking spots are called fat blooms, and despite their appearance the chocolate is still fine to eat. Fat blooms are an accumulation of cocoa butter crystals on the chocolate's surface. One of the common causes is due to poor (or complete disregard of) tempering of the chocolate. If chocolate is properly tempered it will appear much more glossy and will form a crisp shell.

So there you have it. I guess some things are good with a little temper. Lesson learned for the Velveteen Baker. To avoid my little snafu, you can watch this video from Ghirardelli about how to properly temper chocolate.

A Cupcakery Worthy of its Namesake?

When I first heard about Red Velvet Cupcakery in DC's Chinatown from my friends Marcy and Tia, it was like a beacon. For nights I dreamed about trying a red velvet cupcake worthy of naming a bakery after. Fortunately it would only be a number of days until I had to travel to Virginia for work, and I would be able to make my dreams a reality.

I was able to lure four of my colleagues to the cupcakery for a pre-dinner cupcake run. There were Peanut Butter Cup cupcakes...Cookies & Cream cupcakes....and alas, the Southern Belle. A signature red velvet that can "stand up to Grandma's" or so the menu says. At first glance I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. All of their red velvet cupcakes were a deep shade of mahogany and had a serious case of muffin top. But looks can always be deceiving, right?

Despite my initial hesitation, I went all out. I ordered the red velvet, a peanut butter cup and a soy milk to wash it all down. The frosting was a standard cream cheese with just the right amount of sweetness. The cake however, was a sure disappointment. My colleagues and I all agreed that the red velvet cake tasted dry and over-baked. The net of it: I wouldn't name my bakery after it.

I'm hoping this was just a fluke and maybe their Quality Control Manager was out sick that day. Have any of you been to Red Velvet Cupcakery in DC? How was your experience? Any other DC area bakeries you would recommend?

Same Same, But Different

I'm looking to my readers to see what I should bake next. There are so many red velvet variations on my list that I simply cannot choose. So far the contenders are:

• Red wine velvet cake - A classic red velvet with a red wine reduction in the batter.
• Red velvet cake donuts, frosted of course.
• Gluten-free red velvet cupcakes - for all of you cupcake (but not gluten) lovers out there.
• Red velvet cake with beets - A red velvet cake colored with beets instead of food dye.
• Red velvet whoopie pies - Cream cheese frosting sandwiched between two cookie-sized rounds of red velvet cake.

You can vote in my comments section, on my Facebook page, or by using the poll to the right hand side of this post. I'll feature the winning recipe and photos in an upcoming post. Thanks for participating!

Much Ado About Cake Balls

Several weeks back I did a post on the JWT Atlanta blog called The Next Big Thing Could Actually be, Quite Small and asserted my prediction that cake balls were going to be all the rage. Well today I am here to tell you that they are.

I was at first a skeptic, but after making some red velvet cake balls from scratch I was truly convinced. There is something so heavenly about homemade red velvet cake and cream cheese icing mixed together, blanked by a nice, rich coating of chocolate.

I'm not going to lie, these little beauties are pretty labor intensive if you make them from scratch. As a matter of fact, you may start to hate me half way through this process and wonder why you ever decided to make these. But this is when you must press on. I assure you that all of your frustration will be worth its weight in gold once you bite into one of these.

Should you choose to make these, here are a few pointers I'd like to offer:
- Find a Kroger and buy a package of their white or dark chocolate bark. You can also use candy melts, but I found them much more difficult to work with.
- Invest in a candy dipping fork or set like this one. Spend a few more dollars on the metal dipping fork, as I rendered my plastic set useless trying to make these.
- You can use any red velvet cake and frosting recipe, but the following is one of my own. If you use another recipe you will need a 9x13 cake, about 2 cups of frosting and 1 or 2 packages of chocolate bark (depending on how much of a perfectionist you are).

Cupcake Critique: Matty Cakes (Atlanta, GA)

Nice texture and crumb, but the icing didn't blow me away.

So I've driven by Matty Cakes hundreds of times, but had yet to try out this Best of Atlanta bakery. Finally on one of my tasting spree Saturdays (sure beats the gym folks), I was able to stop in. While intent on trying their red velvet, I found myself completely awestruck by a designer purse cake they were making. These fondant covered cakes looked better than some of the bags I've seen on Canal Street. As tempted as I was to order a $140 purse made out of cake, I had to remind myself that I was there just to try their red velvet.

The one thing I like about Matty Cakes is that their prices are super reasonable. Their large cupcake is ginormous and only $2.95. To give you an idea of scale, I took a picture of it on top of a quart of paint, and as you can see, it takes up the majority of its surface area. What they call their "mini" cupcake, is in fact a regular sized cupcake that sells for $1.95.

Now for the red velvet. The cake itself was quite good - the flavor was nice, the texture was moist and the color was a beautiful shade of crimson. I found myself a little disappointed however with the icing. It had a very light whipped cream cheese flavor. It would've been fabulous atop a strawberry shortcake, but it didn't quite stand up to the red velvet for me.

A large cupcake from Matty Cakes is almost equivalent
to the circumference of a quart of BEHR paint.

What I consider to be the ideal color for red velvet.