Memories of The Grill Room: Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake

Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of attending the 40th wedding anniversary of two dear friends. One of their daughters had baked the cakes for the celebration lunch: delicious banana cakes. She said she had wanted to make Red Velvet Cake for the occasion (ruby red for the 40th anniversary), but they didn’t work out for her. I told her I had a recipe for Red Velvet Cake and here it is for you, Synove, with a story to go with it, of course.

I was introduced to Red Velvet Cake when I was a kid. It was the treat at the end of many a downtown shopping trip with my nana. (Yes, we went downtown to shop, everybody did. We even took the bus.) Most of the time, we choose our coveted slice from the dessert section of Eaton’s cafeteria, but once in awhile we enjoyed the finer dining experience of Eaton's Grill Room. This recipe produces the cake that I remember.

Like many of the other recipes I share on this blog, I’ve had this one in my wooden recipe box for a long time and don’t know exactly where it originated. At one time, I made it frequently, but then got away from it. In recent years, Red Velvet Cake has enjoyed a huge resurgence in popularity. There are plenty of recipes and debate about its origin online. I read an interesting article about this cake at the Sand and Feathers blog.

This is an impressive looking scratch cake baked in three layers. I only had two 8” round baking pans available, so I used an 8” springform pan for one of the layers, and it worked just fine.

You could use a cream cheese frosting on this cake. However, the frosting recipe given here is closest to what I remember of the Eaton’s Red Velvet Cake. It calls for granulated white sugar although I have seen similar frosting recipes that use confectioners or icing sugar. It’s a little grittier in texture with the granulated, but it’s the texture I’ve come to prefer. Whichever frosting you go with, make sure you cool the cakes completely. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to refrigerate them and frost them out right out of the fridge. And, be sure to brush the crumbs off the cake before frosting, so the red stays red and the white stays white. Of course, the white frosting is a perfect canvas for decoration, but the dramatic contrast between the red and the white when you slice into the layers has always been striking enough for me.

MA’s Red Velvet Cake

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Grease and flour 3 – 8-inch round baking pans and place a sheet of parchment paper inside the bottom of each pan for easy removal of the cakes. 

Setting up to make the cakes

½ cup butter
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 oz. red food colouring
2 heaping tbsp cocoa
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk or soured milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vinegar

Cream the butter, sugar and eggs.

Cool completely and brush off crumbs before frosting

Make a paste of the food colouring and cocoa and add it to the creamed mixture.

Sift together the flour and salt. Add to the creamed mixture, alternating with the buttermilk.

Add vanilla.

Blend in the soda and vinegar.

Pour the batter into prepared pans.

Bake 24 to 34 minutes or until tester inserted in centre of each cake comes out clean.

Cool on rack. For further cooling and to make frosting the cake easier, cakes can be refrigerated for one to two hours.

Frost with Frosting for Red Velvet Cake.

Store frosted cake in refrigerator. Can be served cold or brought to room temperature.

Printable Recipe for MA's Red Velvet Cake

MA’s Frosting for Red Velvet Cake

Cook flour and milk until very thick

2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

In a double boiler or in a bowl set over boiling water, cook the flour and milk, stirring constantly with lots of love, until very thick. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Cream together the sugar, butter and vanilla until very fluffy.

Add the cooled flour and milk mixture to the

Mix until frosting is consistency of whipped cream

creamed mixture and mix until well blended. The frosting will be the constituency of whipped cream.

Makes enough frosting to fill and frost the side and top of one 3-layer cake.

Printable Recipe for MA's Frosting for Red Velvet Cake

Delicious Red Velvet Cake

Take-Along Dark Chocolate Sheet Cake

Looking homely but tasting great: Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

This is one of those recipes that has been in my little wooden recipe box forever. I return to it whenever I want to make a quick and easy cake and especially if it's a cake that has to do a little travelling. This dark chocolate cake bakes in a 13" x 9" pan and if you're really lucky you have one of these pans with a lid, and if you're really, really lucky your lidded pan fits into one of those padded carriers and comes with its own ice pack.

As I said, this cake is easy to put together. You can mix it up in a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but the batter is quite thin so it's easy enough to do by hand. When it's fully cooled, you can add icing (I like a chocolate butter cream and the recipe for it follows) or just dust on a little icing sugar. I recommend storing this cake in the refrigerator and serving it while it's still a little chilled. The chocolatey cake is moist and tasty by itself and is also an excellent base for a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a few strawberries.

MA's Dark Chocolate Sheet Cake

Ingredients ready and pan greased and floured

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease and flour a 13" x 9" x 2" pan.

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cups cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or soured milk
1 cup strong black coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

Beat for 2 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder.

Add eggs, milk, coffee, oil and vanilla.

Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Batter will be thin.

Don't worry: the batter should be thin.

Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until tester poked into centre of cake comes out clean. The middle of the cake may have a sag but as long as the tester comes out clean, it's done. The saggy middle will be disguised by the frosting.

Cool cake completely in pan.

Frost with chocolate butter cream icing or dust with icing sugar.

Store in refrigerator and serve slightly chilled.

Makes about 12 servings.

Printable Recipe for MA's Dark Chocolate Sheet Cake

MA's Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp cocoa
2-3 tbsp cream or milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream butter.

Sift together icing sugar and cocoa.

Add sugar and cocoa mixture to butter, alternating with cream or milk.

Blend in vanilla and beat until creamy.

Spread onto cooled cake.

Makes icing for 13" x 9" sheet cake. Double the recipe for a layer cake.

Printable Recipe for MA's Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

Banana Love: Blender Banana Layer Cake with Mocha Butter Icing

Two dense, moist layers with a more-chocolate-than-coffee butter icing

Banana. Even saying it brings comfort. BA NA NA

And no wonder. For most of us it's one of the first foods our moms mashed up and spoon-fed us. It appears on the original fast food list. It smells wonderful when baked into muffins, breads and cakes. It's best friends with chocolate, plays well with cream cheese and peanut butter, and you can't make a banana split without it.

The banana has just one little shortcoming. It can go from beautiful bright yellow to spotty brown to mushy black in a few short days. Or is this only a problem in my fruit bowl?

Luckily, there are a myriad of ways to use those less than yellow bananas. For this recipe, be sure to choose bananas that are ripe. A few brown spots are okay, but if your bananas are too mushy, they won't work as well here. Fear not, more banana recipes will follow to use up these unfortunates.

I found this recipe in an old cookbook by one of my favourite chefs, Madame Jehane Benoit. Mme Benoit was an icon in Canadian cooking for many years. In the cookbook, Madame Benoit Cooks at Home, she shares some recipes from her daughter Monique including one for Blender Banana Cake. This is my version of it. If you don't care for the Mocha Butter Icing, cream cheese frosting is equally delicious.

Oh, yeah, you'll need a blender to make this.

Blender Banana Layer Cake 

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Butter two 9” round layer cake pans.

2 ½ cups flour

1 ¼ tsp baking powder

1 ¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

3 ripe bananas (about 1 ½ cups), sliced

3 large eggs

2/3 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup buttermilk or soured milk*

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl.

Put all the remaining ingredients into the blender. Cover and blend until smooth.

Pour blender mixture over dry ingredients and stir until well mixed.

Fill each pan about half full.

Divide batter into cake pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes.

Cool pans on a wire rack.

Test each cake for doneness. Your tester will come out clean when cake is done. 

When cool, assemble and frost. The frosted cake will keep well in the refrigerator for several days. You can also freeze the unfrosted cakes to frost later.

* Soured milk is what to make when you don’t have buttermilk for a recipe. Basically, you take regular milk and add vinegar to it to make it curdle. In this recipe, I used slightly less than 2/3 cup of 1% milk and added about 2 tablespoons of vinegar to it. Voila, soured milk.


Printable Recipe for MA's Blender Banana Cake

Mocha Butter Icing

Icing ingredients with icing sugar divided into two quantities. Yes, that's a sifter in the lower right-hand corner. Sifting is an old-school technique that's worth it when you want a creamy, smooth icing.

½ cup butter, softened

3 cups sifted icing sugar, divided into 2 cups and 1 cup

1/3 cup sifted cocoa

2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp cream or milk

2 tbsp brewed coffee, the stronger the better

MA’s Tip: Sifting the icing sugar and the cocoa is recommended for a smooth and creamy icing. You can mix this whole recipe up in a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer if you are lucky enough to have one, but a hand mixer will work well, too.

Mix together cream/milk and brewed coffee and set aside.

Cream butter with 2 cups of icing sugar and cocoa.

Add vanilla and 1 cup of icing sugar to creamed mixture.

Gradually add cream/milk and coffee mixture until icing is smooth and has reached spreading consistency.

This recipe makes enough icing to fill and frost a two-layer cake or a 13” x 9” sheet cake.

Printable Recipe for MA's Mocha Butter Icing

Care to share a bite?