Late post.... red velvet cake!

My red velvety chocolate cake from scratch!
I made this for Valentines Day this year for a friend's V-Day party. I have been busy with my Master's course last few months. I thought I'd post this recipe today...Here goes!

Ingredients

Dry

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I use all purpose flour for pretty much most of my baked stuff)

2 tbsp / 10g cocoa powder, unsweetened

1 tsp Baking soda or soda bicarb 

Pinch of salt

Ingredients

Wet

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cup sugar- I used breakfast sugar

2 medium sized eggs, at room temperature

1 cup / 250ml vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

2 tsp vanilla extract (or vanilla essence- I used vanilla extract by Sainsbury's)

1 cup / 250 ml buttermilk

2 1/2 tbsp red food colouring liquid

The method take a bit of time but is quite straightforward:

• Preheat oven to 180C/350F (all oven types). Butter two  8" round cake pans and dust with cocoa powder (As it is a chocolate cake, otherwise you could dust with flour).Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl and beat with electric beater. I don't have one so I did it with a whisk. It took time but became just fine.
• Sift the dry Ingredients and combine them in a bowl.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between to combine. At first it will look curdled but don't lose heart so soon, it will become fluffy and nice! ;)
• Add vegetable oil, vinegar, vanilla, buttermilk and red food colouring. Combine them well.
• Now slowly add the combined dry ingredients. Mix in with a palette knife - some small lumps is ok, but don't over mix them, or the cake might fall flat later!
• Divide batter between the two cake pans. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes on the same shelf, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Rest for 10 minutes in the pan then turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.

You can now do the frosting with cream cheese by combining cream cheese, icing sugar, butter and vanilla essence and generously spread it all over the cake, including the centre of the two sponges!

I have simply used white chocolate ganache here as frosting and then decorated it with some sugar work and made a mosaic design on it.
Enjoy and let me know how it goes!
Cheers, Kships