Violetly Velvet [January]

My first dessert of the year is Red Velvet Cake. Why Red Velvet? Well, simply put, I had a bunch of white chocolate chips and peppermint from Christmas that I'd searched for recipes that incorporate the two. I considered red velvet brownies or cookies with white chocolate  chips but a recent visit to Nothing Bundt Cakes and a seldom used bundt pan in my kitchen led me to what I ended up calling Tasha's Velvet Violet Bundt Cake. #CrownRoyalVelvet

I'd browsed many recipes until settling on one. I pulled out all of the ingredients that I had and set out to the grocery store to get the rest. LOL unfortunately because I was going between multiple recipes I ended up forgetting things. Twice. Buttermilk may not have been needed for my cookies. 

So I finally start baking and it's going well. And kudos to the new Food Network Kitchen App commercials for telling me what "creaming sugar and butter" means. I'd just gotten to that step.

Everything was coming together nicely. All of the flavors were coming together, down to the icing. Did I mention EVERYTHING was homemade? No box cake. Anyway, what I didn't read was home much Red food coloring I needed. Dilemma! I have this thing about red velvet cake that isn't red. Light red or pink or whatever, if it's not red I'm a little turned off. My mom, cheering from the sidelines, advised me to just use the red that I have and be done with it. But that would have been too much like right. I didn't want it not to be red so I decided to throw in some blue. Blue and Red food coloring, equaling the amount of color needed for the recipe, make the cake come out a deep purple. Almost chocolate looking, no pun intended. 

Once the cake was made, I was pooped. #Babies I was on mommy duty, plus I'd cooked baked macaroni and cheese, baked beans and oxtails for Saturday dinner. I still had to make the icing. Luckily the recipe stated that the icing could be made days in advance. So I knew that if I made the cake, took it out to cool and didn't ice it right away, I'd be ok. That's what happened. The cake, so yummy looking, and unfortunately difficult to get out of the extra greasy bundt pan was put on the cooling rack then cake taker to cool. It didn't come out as whole as I wanted but it did come out and I was able to put it together. #LikeAGlove

There's white chocolate chips in there to add to the goodness. 

The next morning,  I wanted to finish my cake. My icing was ready, the cake was cool and I had a fork ready to indulge. I think some of the chocolate chips may have scorched or maybe they didnt cook all the way through.  They weren't as ooey gooey as I wanted them to be. 

Either way, the cake was good. I mean, it was really good. I won't speak for anyone else and I'm hoping they weren't saying it just to say it but everyone that had a piece enjoyed it. 

All in all, #Goal13ToBake 1 of 12 was a success.