Simple Joy (小さな幸せ）: Red Velvet Cake

2014

JANUARY 2014 : Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me....

Last year, I decided to start celebrating my birthday( and those to come!) by making red velvet cake and then sharing it with those who could come and make the day a memorable one for me. Its red color certainly symbolizes energy and vigor and I think that those are "must-haves" at this stage in my life.

The Red Velvet Cake I baked for my birthday (2013)

The Red Velvet Cake for my birthday (2014)

Red Velvet Cake is also called "Devil's Food Cake" and is called so "because it is supposedly rich and delicious that it must, to a moralist, be somewhat sinful", according to John Mariani (author of The Dictionary of American Food and Drink). I think I would stick to the name Red Velvet Cake just to avoid the "falling into sin" part! lol

The Red Velvet Cake I baked in 2015 (Flowers from Hiyori)

The 2015 Red Velvet Cake: icing and frosting stage

No, I didn't use the instant Devil's Food Cake Mix. I made it from scratch and followed the recipe provided by the Joy of Baking...but made few adjustments as to its sweetness.

The cake could be had with tea, coffee or wine! Yummmm

2015

For my 2015 Red Velvet Birthday Cake, I used two new ingredients. For the flour, I used お米の粉 ( Rice Flour)* because I could not find one labeled "Cake Flour" at the supermarket. For the cheese, instead of mixing cream cheese with Mascorpone cheese, I used drained yogurt which made the filling less caloric and therefore more nutritionally healthy. The taste of the cheese filling was not as rich but the difference was not that outstanding. The result was great!

*The Rice Flour bag indicated that it could be used for chiffon cake and tempura batter, so I thought I'd try using it for this purpose.

2016