Penelope Jane

Penelope Jane, One Month Old, originally uploaded by musings from madison.

Introducing Penelope Jane
Born on 12.29.2010
7 lbs 9 oz
4:58 pm
20 in long






Picture was taken at one month by Scott Sterner.

Red Velvet Cake for My Love

Ruthie's favorite cake of all time is red velvet cake. I found this out 4 years ago when we first started dating, and it has been tradition ever since then to make this for my Love for Valentines day AND her birthday. With her birthday tomorrow, it's a good time to post this. Red velvet cake is basically a chocolate cake with red food coloring....A LOT of red food coloring. I can't explain it, but the red food coloring adds a unique depth of flavor to this cake. But just like everything else, there are good versions and bad versions. A few years ago The New York Times featured it. I've tried that one as well, but the Red Velvet Cake Connoisseur (RVCC), a.k.a--my Love--said it wasn't very good. Undeterred, I kept on making more Red Velvet cakes for my Love until she was satisfied. This version, according to my Love, is "the best Red Velvet cake she has ever eaten."

The recipe is based on--you guessed it--my grandmother's chocolate cake recipe. Grommie made the best chocolate cake. She also made the best fudge frosting for this cake that was sublime. The icing was dense, yet thin and kinda melted into the cake; chocolate double-chocolate cake you could say. Together, it was the best chocolate cake ever! Just ask anyone in my family and they would tell you that it was the most requested birthday cake of all time. The whole family kept asking her how she made the fudge frosting, and she would say, "Oh that's easy. You just boil sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk, for 3 minutes, then beat until it starts to thicken..." We have all tried to make her fudge frosting, but no one has ever been able to replicate it. I remember the last time we were around the dinning room table drinking our coffee after a wonderful Easter dinner talking about that cake. When we asked her then, "So how do you make that icing?" She would say the same thing, "Oh that's easy. You just boil sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk..." I am still convinced there is some secret ingredient or secret technique she did differently than what was not written down. Maybe one day Ruthie and I will tackle replicating her chocolate cake and fudge frosting recipe. But back to the chocolate cake. This chocolate cake recipe is unusual in the fact that you boil water, cocoa, and butter together and add it directly to the sugar and flour. You would think this would toughen the cake by seizing the starch and making it pasty, but instead it does the opposite by somehow 'tempering' the starch molecules in the flour and preventing gluten formation. This is the sort of kitchen science experiment I love since I am a biochemist.

As a side note. The original recipe calls for margarine. Margarine was originally made with partially hydrogenated vegetables oils to approximate the soft spreadability of butter. But now we know how bad partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are for us, so we don't cook with them anymore. When I tried to make this recipe with all butter, the cake came out too firm and dry. I have noticed this with a lot of recipes that were originally made with margarine. After some trial and error I found how to get the "old'fashioned" texture and flavor without using margarine. I use 1/2 butter and a 1/2 vegetable oil in place of the original margarine. This gives the cake buttery flavor, but preserves the moistness which the vegetable oil lends to the cake. I have tried this substitute with many different recipes and it works quite well. An important point to remember about this cake recipe is to mix the batter thoroughly after adding the ingredients especially the baking soda at the end.

Cream cheese frosting is the traditional icing for this cake and I think it compliments the rich chocolate cake incredibly well. If this cake couldn't get any better, I added real vanilla bean seeds in addition to the vanilla extract which intensifies the vanilla flavor. There are different components to this recipe, but it goes quickly so make sure the oven is preheated before starting.

Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

Preheat oven to 400 degrees before starting.

Mix with the beater attachment (NOT whip attachment) of an electric mixer (2 minutes on #2 setting on Kitchenaid, med-low):

2 cups (8.5 oz) pastry or cake flour (All-purpose flour WILL NOT be the same)
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt.

While mixer is running, in a 2 quart saucepan bring to BOIL and immediately remove from heat:

1/2 cup (1 stick; 4 oz) butter
1/2 cup (4 oz) vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/3 cup cocoa

Set aside 5 MINUTES to cool slightly (you want it very hot, but not boiling, when you add to sugar/flour mixure). With mixer running on low speed (#1 on Kitchenaid), add the hot mixture. Then turn up the mixer to med-low (#2 setting on Kitchenaid) for 1 MINUTE (don't worry, you won't over beat).

Meanwhile in a SEPARATE small bowl, beat very well:

2 large eggs

Then add to the eggs:

1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

And beat together and add slowly to the mixer while running (again, #2 setting on kitchenaid). Then add:

2 oz red food coloring (usually sold in 1 oz bottles so you will need two 1 oz bottles; 1/4 cup)

Beat all for 2 MINUTES and then add:

1 tsp baking soda (I usually measure 1 tsp and then put in a 1 cup measure and then with back of s spoon crush the clumps that are present before adding to the batter. Baking soda tends to clump)

Beat 2 minutes. and then transfer to two 8- or 9-inch cake pans (greased and dusted with flour) OR to cupcake liners. If using cupcakes molds, fill VERY FULL (7/8ths up the sides).

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes (12-15 min for cupcakes) or until a toothpick comes out clean.  DON'T OVERCOOK or it will dry out too much. Cool before icing.

Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing:

1 stick (4 oz) butter
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
1 vanilla bean with the seeds scraped into the icing mixer (OR 2 tsp vanilla)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 cups of powdered sugar

Beat the butter and cream cheese until soft. Add the vanilla bean seeds and beat in the powdered sugar until stiff enough to spread. Feel free to add more (or less) powdered sugar if needed to get to the right consistency.

This cake is best made the day ahead or early in the day before serving. DON'T REFRIGERATE THE CAKE. If you are worried about the cream cheese icing sitting out, store the cake at room temperature and ice the cake a couple of hours before serving.

MIA

When do you update a blog about personal things?  You know those things that take a ton of your time, thoughts and energy that you do not desire to share with the whole world right away (because the whole world reads our blog...ya right)?  Well, today is the day I feel comfortable sharing... I realize my last post was in March and even at that it was a reference to an article. And yes for our readers benefit my darling husband has been sporadically updating the site with garden updates or things we are excited about food wise, I however have been a complete and total blogger-slacker.

So the big reveal?  What the heck has been going on in my (our) life that has me so distracted?  Well, things changed a bit for me a little over 20 weeks ago.   Hummm....speaking in weeks?  Why yes, I find myself speaking in weeks.  Is that a dead give away?

For the past 20ish weeks I have been growing who we found out today, is our daughter!

GARLIC!!!!!!

I have been waiting all year for this.  This past Saturday was our garlic harvest and they're beautiful.  We have had a very wet June and as of yesterday we had over 8 inches of rain.  It was just too much and I decided pull them before they started to deteriorate.  And after seeing them, they were ready.

There is something about seeing all this garlic hanging on our porch drying down for winter storage.  We grew a variety called Siberian.  It is a hardneck garlic and this variety is adapted to the Northern climates and can handle 6 inches of solid frozen ground.  The Siberian garlic is intense and spicy; it also forms 6-8 very large, easy to peel cloves because I hate peeling tiny cloves.   We had over 30 pounds and 120 heads.  The goal was to harvest about 120-130 heads and we would save the largest heads (about 1/5th of the harvest) and replant in late October.

You wonder whether we'll eat all this garlic...probably not (at least not this year).  There will probably be excess.  But that is OK because it was a fun to grow.  But just to let you know, we actually do eat a lot of garlic; almost 2 heads a week.  Basically any recipe that calls for garlic, I triple it.  Our basic marinara has 4-6 cloves and I routinely add half a head of garlic to our roasted chicken.  And I have been known to substitute garlic ounce for ounce for recipes calling for onion because I like the extra punch.  It's addictive.  and I believe you can never eat too much garlic.