By Angela Denstad
I’m time and again forgetting dates and details, needing to think back to the context of what was happening or what felt important at the time in order to uncover a clue that allows me to do the simple math – still disbelieving – to answer a basic question. Such as, “How long have you lived here?” Time and memory seem to operate on separate non-linear systems.
But I know that on December 20, 2004, I first tried out the recipe featured here. And I know that on December 22, 2010, I first wrote about this cake, the article being published on my firstborn son’s sixth birthday. I also know that this special cake tradition has continued unbroken: Each year – including the one in which he was born – he has had a Red Velvet Cake.
The first year, the cake was simply awaiting his arrival; I happened to have tried the recipe two days before he was born. By his first birthday, he had earned the ability to eat it, too. In subsequent years, his love of cinnamon and cocoa made it seem a good fit. It was also the perfect color cake for sculpting fire engines and race cars. When he was a precocious grade-schooler, I played up the recipe’s built-in science experiment, pouring a bubbling mixture of baking soda and vinegar over the batter. I also presented it as a chemistry lesson; the reddish color of this Victorian era cake (though augmented with food coloring in modern times) results from a chemical reaction between natural cocoa powder, buttermilk and vinegar.
As time went on, the tradition became so firmly established it was no longer even a question. Red Velvet would provide the warm flavors and seasonal hue of a cream-filled geometric concoction, a turntable cake complete with a record made of chocolate, a computer keyboard layout of petit fours, and an accurately scaled Rubik’s Cube. When he came home on his first winter break from college last year, it was Red Velvet below the snowy white frosting and gingerbread recreation of the Dartmouth Green.
And as I’m gathering the ingredients for this year’s celebratory confection, I can clearly feel my way back to that first trial, having researched the recipe based on its resurgence in popularity at the time. Back then, it was just a simple whim, something comforting to do on my “due date.” I didn’t yet know I’d become the sort of mother who would insist on baking all the birthday cakes from scratch. I didn’t know I would give so much effort in big and small ways, and that I’d be capable of overcoming failure, like when a Red Velvet rocket ship crashed under its own weight and, at dawn, I began again.
Now I find myself pondering, as his life is opening into such unknown possibility, what is the interplay between the guidance I’ve provided and that which is intrinsically him? How do both big and small things that are decided for us shape who we become? Sometimes having small choices already made, like wearing the same thing or eating the same breakfast each day, frees up mental energy for more complex thought. And perhaps nature and nurture are ingredients carefully combined, greater than the sum of their parts.
Could he choose another cake one of these years? Or perhaps he simply accepts that his cake, as well as having a mother who expresses love in that medium, was decided for him.
Whatever the future holds, I’m grateful I’ve had the privilege of celebrating him in good health on each of his birthdays to date. And, as the frosting on the cake, the recipe is decidedly worth the work – a great way to celebrate any special birthday or festive occasion in the upcoming days.
About the author: Angela works as a copywriter in the education sector and has dabbled in various culinary pursuits. She was the author of The Caledonia Argus’ long-standing weekly food column Thyme Out with Angela and is happy to now join the rotation of food writers with the Fillmore County Journal.
Red Velvet Cake
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons natural cocoa powder
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon red food coloring
2½ cups cake flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda
Preheat the oven to 350º. Grease and lightly flour two 9-inch cake pans. Cream the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer; add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed until very light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add in the cinnamon, vanilla and salt.
In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, water and red food coloring, stirring until a paste forms. Add to the creamed mixture to incorporate. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder. Working on low speed, add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the batter, then half of the buttermilk, making sure the ingredients are fully incorporated after each addition. Continue to alternate adding another ⅓ of the flour, then the rest of the buttermilk, and finally the rest of the flour.
Dissolve the baking soda in the vinegar, stirring to combine, and carefully fold the mixture into the cake batter. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans and bake in the center of the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
When cool, fill and frost the cakes as desired. Cream cheese frosting is the traditional choice.
Recipe adapted from The James Beard Foundation.
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