Today on The Stay At Home Chef I'm showing you how to make
Od Fashioned Red Velvet Cake.
You are probably familiar with modern red velvet cake
which has a cream cheese frosting and is dyed red with food coloring. Today I'm
going to show you how to make the old-fashioned version that achieves its
red color from beets and has a cooked frosting called Ermine icing. To start
you'll need a large beet and I've already rinsed mine off and scrubbed off
any dirt or debris and you want to wrap this in aluminum foil and pop that into
a 425-degree oven for about an hour until tender
Once it's tender you want to unwrap it from the foil and we're gonna remove the skin.
I like to use a paper towel to hold it so my hands don't get dyed red and
then I still use a peeler to peel it off because it's hot you want to get all of
the skin off then I cut it into chunks and place it in a little bowl. You want
to take a fork--they're slippery-- and mash them up you need 1/2 cup of mashed beet
Then dump your mashed beets into a large mixing bowl. If you don't want to
mash your beets you can also just grate them on a cheese grater. To the beets
we're gonna add in 1 1/4 cup of buttermilk and yes you want to use
buttermilk for a red velvet cake. You'll also need 4 eggs , 1 cup of warm water
1/2 cup of vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and last of
all 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar. You'll mix this all together
It's already a bright pink color and we haven't used any food coloring
Beets will do that to you! Next add in 3 cups of sugar ,3 cups of all-purpose flour,
1/2 cup of corn starch, 1/3 of a cup of cocoa powder. It has just a light
chocolate flavoring. Then you'll need 1 tablespoon of baking soda 1 and 1/2
teaspoons of baking powder, some salt 1 and 1/2 teaspoons and we'll mix this in
You'll notice that it doesn't necessarily have a bright red color
That's not how the original red velvet cake looked. It just had a hint of red and
of course stop every now and then to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl
so everything gets mixed in. Next you'll need three lightly greased 9-inch cake pans
and you'll see that I've lined the bottom with parchment paper to help the
cakes come out more clean. Divide the batter up equally amongst the three pans
Then we're gonna bake these in a 375-degree oven for about 30 to 35 minutes
until the centers are cooked through and pas the toothpick test
I just spread mine out and close the door. Now while the cakes are baking you'll want
to start on your Ermine icing. Place a saucepan on the stove over a nice medium
low heat and add in 1 cup of sugar and 4 1/2 tablespoons so just over
1/4 cup of all-purpose flour. Whisk this together and kind of let the flour
toast for a couple minutes. After a couple minutes slowly start adding in
1 cup of milk and you want to use whole milk or at least 2% for this. Be sure to
add it in nice and slowly so you don't end up with any clumps. Increase the heat
to medium and whisk constantly until this comes to a simmer. I's kind of hard
to tell what you're looking for but you'll see there's a foam layer on top
You're gonna wait until that disappears. After a few minutes the foam on top will
disappear and you'll be left with a pudding like consistency and then
immediately transfer this all to a bowl and then to prevent a film from forming
on top while it cools, you'll take a piece of plastic wrap and place it
directly on the top of the mixture so that it's touching it. Place your bowl in
the fridge for about an hour to cool until you're ready to make the rest of
your frosting. When your cakes are out of the oven and completely cooled then you
are ready to make your frosting. You'll need a whole cup or two sticks of
softened butter and preferably that would be unsalted and you want to whip
this for two to three minutes until it's light
and fluffy you want to whip it, whip it good. Once you have it nice and light and
fluffy you'll remove the plastic wrap from your little pudding like mixture
and take 1 to 2 tablespoons, plop it in the bowl and then mix that in. You want
to keep on doing that adding in another spoonful until you've mixed your entire
milk mixture in with the butter. Honestly this is a slow process and requires a
little bit of patience so just keep going and beat in as much air as
possible to make this icing nice and fluffy
Once you have that all mixed in add in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and
just a pinch of salt. Mix that in and you are done! Once your cakes are completely
cooled you'll be ready to assemble and frost your cake. When it comes to red
velvet cake I like to leave my edges bare on the cake on the outside so that
you can see that beautiful red color but if you would like to frost your entire
cake you'll probably want to double this icing recipe so keep that in mind when
you're making the recipe.
As you can see you end up with a beautiful naked cake. I will write the
instructions so that there's enough frosting to cover the whole thing
including the outside however if you want to do it like me, follow the video
and halve what is written in the recipe.
Thanks for watching! You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
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