by Jane Rodmell for All The Best Fine Foods, a ‘Certified Good Food Fighter‘
February is the month for little indulgences. Whether you’re planning to surprise your spouse, to dazzle your intended or simply to share some special time with friends and family, at All The Best you’ll find just the treats you’re looking for to bring smiles and sweet feelings. Our shelves are overflowing with specialty candies, hand decorated gingerbread and sugar cookies, adorable mini meringue hearts, sweetly decorated cupcakes and lots of irresistible chocolates.
In our kitchen, the pastry chefs are up to their elbows in chocolate batter, creamy frostings and pink meringue! They’re having fun creating lots of treats you’ll find hard to resist. Mini Conversation Heart Cakes in Red Velvet (four layers of red velvet cake with strawberry preserve filling and cream cheese frosting) or Chocolate Hazelnut Chiffon (four layers of hazelnut cake with chocolate hazelnut mousse filling, hazelnut butter cream frosting and chocolate glaze) provide super indulgence for two. Our decadent Chocolate Caramel Pecan Torte is a totally sinful dark chocolate cake with layers of gooey sea salt caramel and pecans. The Chocolate Heart Cake has layers of moist deep chocolate-flavoured cake with chocolate frosting and is the perfect cake for the whole family to enjoy. There are also red velvet baby cakes with cream cheese frosting and a dusting of pink and red sugar.
The subject of the perfect red velvet cake (as with brownies and butter tarts) is cause for great debate among passionate bakers. The original recipe was published in the United States in the mid-1900s. The dark reddish- brown hue of the moist, chocolatey cake comes as a result of the reaction of red anthocyanin pigment in cocoa powder with an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk. Many recipes enhance the redness with the addition of food colouring or grated cooked beets. Legend has it that red velvet cakes were a specialty served as dessert in Eaton’s department stores in the 1940s and 1950s. The recipe was jealously guarded and employees were sworn to secrecy. If any of our readers have this gem in their collection, we would love to hear from you. We hope you will drop by All The Best to taste our version.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Jane
Three Layer Red Velvet Cake
Cake
3 ¾ c flour
1 ½ t salt
1 ½ T vanilla
1 ½ c buttermilk
1 1/8 c cocoa powder
8 oz raspberry puree
1 oz red food colouring
1 ½ c butter, softened
3 c sugar
3 eggs
2 ¼ t baking soda
3 ¾ oz bourbon
Icing
2 c cream cheese, softened
1/3 c butter, softened
3 c icing/confectioners sugar
2 t vanilla
Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour three 9 inch layer cake pans
2. Batter: Combine flour and salt in large bowl and mix well.
3. In a second bowl, stir vanilla into buttermilk
4. In a separate small bowl, combine cocoa, raspberry puree and food colour. Mash into a thick paste
5. In another large bowl, beat butter with mixer at low speed till soft. Add sugar and baking soda and beat well for 4 minutes.
6. Beat in each egg, one at a time
7. Fold cocoa paste into batter and mix evenly
8. Add buttermilk
9. Add half the flour mixture while beating at low speed
10. When the flour disappears, add remainder of flour and beat to mix in
11. Bake 30 minutes and then cool cakes
12. After cakes are cooled: 1) slice off the rounded part on top of each layer so that each layer lies flat on the one below, and 2) pour bourbon over cakes
Icing
1. Combine cream cheese and butter in large bowl and beat till soft and fluffy
2. Add sugar and vanilla and beat till mixed
3. Frost cakes, assemble, and refrigerate 1 hour to set icing
Thank you, Joanne. Would your recipe come from Eaton’s secret file? The addition of a bourbon drizzle will certainly liven things up. Cann’t wait to try your version.
As anyone who ever had the famous Eaton’s red velvet cake knows, that is not the recipe. It did not have a cream cheese icing. It had the icing where you cooked the flour and made a paste. I grew up on the Eaton’s cake and have long searched for the recipe. A book about Eaton’s came out a few years ago and claimed to have the recipe but even it was not right. I never knew that the Eaton’s cake included cocoa and to me, red velvet is NOT a chocolate cake. The Eaton’s cake had such a texture, a very fine crumb and was moist. Red velvet described it perfectly. The cakes and cupcakes I have seen and tasted do not do red velvet justice at all. I have come up with my version of red velvet and although people have said that it is the best cupcake they have ever eaten, it is nowhere near what the Eaton’s cake was. Sadly as the years go by it is harder to remember the taste. The closest I have come is the red velvet cheesecake at the cheesecake factory. The combination is close to the taste of the Eaton’s cake.
I wish that someone who used to bake for Eaton’s would come forward and offer a recipe and some tips. I guess it was made in huge quantities so it might be hard to scale down for the home cook and maybe some of the ingredients were commercial?
Well the search continues 😉