Random

[oxoniensis]

+ 100_ghosts is up and running again! There's a Halloweenish prompt up this week, so make tvm and me happy and play.

+ I am having a stressful week, and it's hitting my writing. Writing is supposed to be destressing me, so that is just Not On.

+ I ♥ Pushing Daises, to a ridiculous degree.

+ Sam/Ruby is my hot porny place right now. Well, that and vinylroad's

Comments

[akacat]

My mom's made it a lot, but I never have. A couple of bottles doesn't sound quite right, but I could see one full bottle being used. It is a pretty deep/bright red.

[oxoniensis]

It's just that I'm used to measuring food colouring by drops. Maybe a teaspoon. But a bottle seemed so much I wondered if American food colouring is maybe very different from the stuff we have. I was also a tiny bit worried that using that much might affect the flavour.

It sounds fascinating though.

[akacat]

I'm pretty sure that the food coloring does affect the flavor. I never noticed a downside to it.

I just checked, the copy of the recipe I have calls for 2oz of red coloring. Huh. I guess that is more than one bottle!

[akacat]

Oh, and most recipes I've seen do measure food coloring in drops or fractions of a teaspoon. So there probably isn't any significant difference between ours and yours.

[scribblinlenore]

Red velvet cake makes me so nostalgic! I haven't had one since I was a kid. Sadly, I have no recipe. My mother might. I'm going to ask her the next time I talk to her. But it would have a lot of red food coloring in it. That's how they make it in the South.

[oxoniensis]

From what everyone else is saying, it does sound like it takes more than one bottle of food colouring! Wow.

I've just got it into my head that I have to try it! And now I'm really craving chocolate!

[elenlilta]

Yeah, red velvet's very much a Southern US thing - my mom made three cakes once for her northern family and no one but my immediate family touched it. (I'm trying to find our family recipe right now; if no one's given you one by the time I find it, I'll send it your way.)

[oxoniensis]

I'd love the recipe - thank you! I'm always willing to try something new!

[elenlilta]

Here it is; usually as a rule, traditional Southern recipes vary by family because of experimentation by cooks through the years. And usually red velvet cake takes a cream cheese frosting; my family does a different (but incredibly, incredibly good) icing with whipping cream

[oxoniensis]

Thank you so much for this! I'm going to have to give this a try as soon as I get some time.

And thanks for the conversion link too - measurements and all sorts are very different. Just one question - by soda, do you mean baking soda, or some sort of fizzy drink?

[apocalypsos]

Every time I think of red velvet cake all I can think of is the armadillo cake in Steel Magnolias.

[oxoniensis]

I have to admit that I've never seen Steel Magnolias! Now two people have mentioned the armadillo cake, and I'm going to have to google it! *g*

(You have a Morgan and Awesome icon!!! EEeeeeeeeeee)

[femmenerd]

Me too!

I need a Dolly icon, stat.

[hederahelix]

I have a recipe at home. I'm at the office right now, so it may be a while before I remember to post it, but yes,it's a very southern recipe (as evidenced by the presence of the quintessentially southern ingredients of way too much food coloring, pecans, and buttermilk), and yes, it really does call for more than one bottle of red food coloring. Every time I've made it, I end up with like half a bottle left, and I always throw that out before I get around to making it again.

IIRC, it's basically a white cake base with a little cocoa and buttermilk in it, and a lot of red food coloring. The frosting should be a cream cheese frosting with pecans. And yes, it looks exactly like the armadillo cake from Steel Magnolias.

[oxoniensis]

I wouldn't have recognised them as southern ingredients - I just sort of vaguely realised it was an American recipe, and didn't get any more regional than that! *is ignorant*

Can't really go wrong with cake and chocolate and pecans! Mmmh.