Red Velvet Cake

If a red velvet cake is what you're thinking for Valentines Day (or any day), this recipe from epicurious.com is perfect.  Epicurious.com credits Nancie McDermott with this recipe.  It's from her book Southern Cakes.

Here is a brief history of red velvet cake, from Wikipedia: "James Beard's 1972 American Cookery describes three red velvet cakes varying in the amounts of shortening and butter. All use red food coloring, but the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa. Before more alkaline "Dutch Processed" cocoa was widely available, the red color would have been more pronounced. This natural tinting may have been the source for the name "Red Velvet" as well as "Devil's Food" and similar names for chocolate cakes...While foods were rationed during World War II, bakers used boiled beets to enhance the color of their cakes. Boiled grated beets or beet baby food are found in some red velvet cake recipes, where they also serve to retain moisture...A red velvet cake was a signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. According to a common urban legend a woman once asked for the recipe for the cake, and was billed a large amount. Indignant, she spread the recipe in a chain letter...In Canada the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton's department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an "exclusive" Eaton's recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake to be the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton...A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias in which the groom's cake (another southern tradition) is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo."

Whatever its origins, red velvet cake is enjoying a huge surge in popularity.  If you bake this one, with its coconut-pecan icing, your Valentine will be very grateful, indeed!

Red Velvet Cake

Cake:

2 1/2 cups
all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk (see Note)
2 tablespoons cocoa
One 1-ounce bottle (2 tablespoons) red food coloring
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cider vinegar or white vinegar

Coconut-Pecan Icing:

1 cup milk
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

To make the cake, heat the oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans generously, and line them with waxed paper or kitchen parchment. Grease the paper and flour the pans.

Prepare three separate mixture for the batter: Combine the flour and salt in a medium bowl and use a fork to mix them together well. Stir the vanilla into the buttermilk. Combine the cocoa and the red food coloring in a small bowl, mashing and stirring them together to make a thick, smooth paste.

In a large bowl, beat the butter with a mixer at low speed for 1 minute, until creamy and soft. Add the sugar, and then beat well for 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl now and then. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each one, until the mixture is creamy, fluffy, and smooth. Scrape the cocoa-food coloring paste into the batter and beat to mix it in evenly.

Add about a third of the flour mixture, and then about half the milk, beating the batter with a mixer at low speed, and mixing only enough to make the flour or liquid disappear into the batter. Mix in another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, and then the last of the flour in the same way.

In a small bowl, combine the baking soda and vinegar and stir well. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to quickly mix this last mixture into the red batter, folding it in gently by hand. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans.

Bake at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes, until the layers spring back when touched lightly in the center and are just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pans.

Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks or folded kitchen towels for 15 minutes. Then turn them out on the racks or on plates, remove the paper, and turn top side up to cool completely.

To make the icing, combine the milk and flour in a small or medium saucepan. Cook over medium beat, whisking or stirring often, until the mixture thickens almost to a paste, 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and scrape it into a small bowl to cool completely.

Meanwhile, beat the butter with a mixer at high speed until light and fluffy. Add the sugar in thirds, beating well each time, until the mixture is creamy and fairly smooth. Add the cooled milk-and-flour mixture and beat for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the sides now and then, to combine everything well. Using a large spoon or your spatula, stir in the vanilla, coconut, and pecans, mixing to combine everything well into a thick, fluffy, nubby icing.

To complete the cake, place one layer, top side down, on a cake stand or a serving plate, and spread icing on the top. Place the second layer, right side up, on top. Frost the sides and then the top of the cake. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more to help the icing set.

Note: If you don't have buttermilk, stir 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice into 1 cup of milk and let stand for so minutes.

Photo credit:  http://www.epicurean.com/featured/red-velvet-cake-recipe.html