Cupcakeasaurus

As much as I dislike the idea of getting older, I do enjoy birthdays. Not for the presents or the nice dinners out, but for the time you spend with the people you care about. And I'm not just talking about my own birthday, I also mean other people's too. I love being able to show people how much I appreciate having them in my life by celebrating the next milestone in their life.

This week was one of my friend's birthday. I have known him since high school and we have stayed closed in all the years since. To make his birthday a little extra special, I offered to make him his all-time favourite birthday dessert (you know, that dessert that you would just absolutely die for!) However, when I asked him, he simply said a vanilla cake would be good. I'm not going to lie, I was surprised! I was offering to make him anything he wanted, cheesecake, croquembouche, pie, eclaires, but he just wanted a simple cake. I asked him why and he would appreciate anything I made him, so something easy was fine. That really spoke to me of his selfless character and I knew I couldn't do a boring vanilla cake (no offense to people who like vanilla!)

After chatting with him some more, I found out 3 important things: he likes the color red, he loves berries (raspberries being his favourite), and he does like cheesecake. Immediately, an idea came to mind. I was going to make a layered red velvet cake, with a raspberry jam in the middle, and covered with a cream cheese frosting (to represent the cheesecake aspect).

Here are the recipes I used. The red velvet is the same recipes as the cupcakes I made for Canada day, just simply doubled and baked in 9" round pans instead. The raspberry jam was made from scratch from the Cake Boss website. Lastly, the cream cheese frosting was store bought, unfortunately. I did try to make it from scratch (using a different recipe), but it was once again an epic failure. It seems I will never get that recipe right! If any one has tips or a recipe for the perfect cream cheese icing (a thick one that you can ice a cake with - not the soupy mess I've been making) let me know!

Red Velvet Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen. Yields 2 9" cake rounds and 6 cupcakes.

1 tbsp butter
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups canola oil

2 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs
6 tbsp (3 oz) red food coloring or 1 tsp red gel food coloring dissolved in 6 tbsp of water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease the cake pans (and line the muffin tin with liners)

2.     Whisk cake flour and cocoa.

3.     Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

4.     Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.

5.     Divide batter among pans, place in oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off parchment. Cool completely before frosting.

Raspberry Filling
Adapted from Cake Boss. Yields more than enough to make one layer of filling in a 9" cake.

12 oz frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed

1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
2 heaping tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp raspberry vodka (or some type of raspberry flavoured alcohol) - if you don't have this, don't worry about using it

Directions

1. Thaw raspberries and strain juice from berries.  Add enough water to the juice to get 3/4 cup of liquid.
2. In a small saucepan, combine raspberry juice/water, sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch.  Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture bubbles and thickens.  Remove from heat, set aside.
3. With a fine wire strainer, use a spoon to press the raspberries so that the seedless pulp falls into a bowl below.  Strain enough pulp to get between 1/3 - 1/2 cup of pulp.
4. To the cooled mixture in the saucepan, add 2 tbsp raspberry vodka and the raspberry pulp.  Stir well and refrigerate a few hours or overnight.

To assemble cake:

1. Once cakes have cooled completely and have been removed from pans, use a serrated knife to level off the tops of the cakes. Keep the cake bits removed for snacking (by the way, they freeze really well for snacking at a later date).
2. Pour some of the filling on top of the bottom layer of your cake and use a spoon to spread it out. You want the layer to be a little thick, so that you get a nice taste of it in the cake - so don't make it too thin. Leave 1/4 - 1/2 inch gap around the edge of the cake to prevent spilling over.
3. Put the top layer onto the cake and frost the cake how ever you wish!

I have to say, this cake is delicious! I have been snacking on the leftover cake pieces for the past 3 days and have probably put on 5 pounds because of it. The raspberry filling is also really tasty. I was worried, the raspberry vodka doesn't taste very good on it's own, but it turned out great!

For the decorations on top of the cake, the birthday boy has this tattoo of a green dinosaur eating a cupcake (the technical term is a cupcakeasaurus). So upon another friend's suggestion, I put that on the top of the cake. I simply coloured some icing and piped the image onto the cake. Considering I only had a picture of the tattoo next to the cake, and I only had one shot to get it right, I think it turned out great! The writing and brown outline are done with melted chocolate, since I didn't think I'd be able to get an icing that dark in color.

When I brought the cake to the birthday party, everyone was impressed! They all thought it tasted delicious and the cupcakeasaurus was adorable. The birthday boy seemed tickled with his cake and I was so happy I could do that for him.

As I chatted with other friends over cake, I came to find out a lot of them have been following my blog! One said he loved the way I write as if I'm speaking to people, and that touched me so deeply. I don't think I ever thought people would actually read my blog. I thought they'd just come use some recipes or drool over pictures of delicious food. But I'm delighted to know people actually enjoy the stories I tell along with them. It makes my passion for what I'm doing here burn brighter and drives me to try new things and improve myself as a baker.

So thank you all for visiting my blog, I appreciate it tremendously, and I hope you continue to enjoy reading it and following me on my baking adventures.