Everyone is always saying to me, “Baking is so hard. You have to be so precise. Your hair is amazing.” But I disagree. Putting the confused politics of cupcake-feminism aside, baking is a fucking piece of cake.
Cake is like sex. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. You shouldn’t be afraid to mess up, you’re just basically mixing some eggs and flour together until they resemble something remotely delicious.
This recipe for red velvet cake is testament to the idea that you can tamper with the rules however you like. The original called for buttermilk and baking soda and a bunch of other crap I didn’t want to walk to the store to buy, so I tweaked it and it still came out like a beautiful red cheeseburger. Just look at it.
Ingredients.
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup butter
- 3 cups self-raising flour
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tbsp red food dye
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp. vinegar
Method.
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Grease two cake tins.
- Combine the flour, cocoa powder and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, mix the butter (you might need to leave it out to soften first), sugar and vanilla until they are combined. Add the eggs one at a time, then mix in the food colouring.
- Add part flour, part milk bit by bit and mix until it’s all used up. Add the vinegar (I don’t know what this is for either).
- Put the mixture into your two cake tins. Bake for twenty-five minutes. Cool.
- Ice however you like. Mine looked like this:
Faevourite 
I like it that two of my suggestions were included. :-)
But I didn’t get to eat the cake. :-(
Interesting concept. Funnny though… I had a friend who made a velvet cake with oil instead of butter – it seemed to really make the difference. Another possibility in the world of cakes and baking.