Rollin' Out the Red...

...Velvet that is. Yep, you know it's holiday time at Poodlevania when the kitchen looks like a set for Saw XXIV or whatever number that unholy franchise is up to now.

Seriously, I feel that it is my duty to seek out and consume as much red velvety goodness as I possibly can during the month of December...for some reason, it doesn't taste the same during any other time of the year. Probably goes back to my grandmother only making it during the holidays, so it really was a special treat.

(Do not get me wrong--you put a slab of Red Velvet cake in front of me in the middle of July, I'm eating it...don't even try to stop me. "Seasonal" only goes so far...)

So, I'm in the process of making my first one this year, and I have decided to try something new. I know, I know, it sound sacrilegious, but sometimes, you just have to think outside the cake pan.

I was going through the recipe folder in my inbox and found one for a Red Velvet Roll cake. Never having made a roll cake before, I thought why the hell not? Plus, I'm supposed to bring something to a party tonight, so why not experiment! These are probably famous last words...

Here's the recipe, and I'm not really sure where the heck I got it. I apologize profusely for not giving credit. However, I think I got it from the Baking Bites blog, because it seems to be the exact same recipe, but I am not 100% sure. I could have gotten it from somewhere else on the vast Internets, and that person swiped it from Baking Bites.

Red Velvet Roll Cake

3/4 cup sifted cake flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp buttermilk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a jelly roll pan (approximately 17"x12"x1") with aluminum foil and grease it well with some vegetable oil or cooking spray.

Sift together sifted cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into asmall bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs together with an electric mixer on high speed. Once they are frothy, slowly add in the sugar. Beat until light, approximately 5 minutes. Beat in the vegetable oil, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and red food coloring. Working steadily, but gradually, mix in the cocoa mixture with the electric mixer at a low speed.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 12-15 minutes, until cake springs back when lightly pressed in the center.

While cake is baking, sift some confectioners' sugar onto a large, clean dish towel. When you remove the cake from the oven, carefully flip it over onto the dish towel. Peel off the foil (it should come off easily because it was greased) and roll the cake up in the dish towel, beginning with a short end.

Place cake, hot but wrapped in the towel, seam-side down on a wire rack to cool completely (at least 1 hour). Prepare filling (below) while it cools.

Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat all ingredients together until light and spreadable. When cake is cool, gently unwrap it and spread the inside with the filling. Re-roll and place on a serving platter. Dust with more confectioners' sugar before serving. Serves 8-10

The batter for this cake was extremely thin and seemed a bit more cocoa-ey than a regular Red Velvet. I jacked up the food coloring a bit, because I like my Red Velvet to be r-e-d. Otherwise, it's just a dirty brown chocolate cake. And, I was kind of worried about what it would look like, based on the sheer amount of cocoa...this was really leaning into the "dirty brown" category.

I used parchment paper as well, instead of foil, because I could and I had more parchment than foil in the cabinet. I don't know if that change contributed to the outcome or not...'cause you know there was an "outcome.'

The hardest part at first was trying to get the batter evenly spread over over the parchment lined pan. Of course, one side has to be thinner than the other, always. I envy people who can get their batters even for cakes...envy them.

So, I cook the cake for about 12 minutes, popped it out onto the dish towel and removed the parchment. I rolled it up in the towel, knocking over the box of vanilla extract on the counter. Hmm...it was a new bottle of vanilla, still in the box, which meant I forgot to put it in the cake. Yeah. Well, hell, with all that cocoa powder, who is going to notice if there's a wispy little note of vanilla or not.

I pulled the cake out and rolled it in the dish towel...so far, so good, but it really is more brown than red. I cooled it for the requisite hour, unrolled it, and spread the filling inside. During the unrolling process, part of the cake stuck to the towel...sort of like the "skin" of the cake. The resultant "log" looked like it had the mange or some other affliction.

I dutifully cut the ends off to tidy it up and ate them and was extremely disappointed. It was dry and too chocolatey...not red velvety enough.

The ends/edges were drier because the batter didn't spread evenly, but there really was way too much cocoa powder involved in this train wreck of a cake. I think if I were to make it again, I would definitely reduce the amount of cocoa...and feel free to chime in with suggestions of your own. Also, more red food coloring. Don't care that it might make me crazy or cause tumors, I want me some R-E-D velvet cake. Besides, I think I already are crazy.

I had some serious misgivings about the amount of cocoa in the recipe, because this is not really a chocolate cake...I've read articles and other blogs' posts about it being just a "chocolate cake colored red," but it's not. Most of the recipes call for 2 tablespoons at the most, which is half the cocoa in this recipe. IMSBO (that would be "in my seriously biased opinion," the cocoa's purpose is to give more complexity and depth to the cake's flavor and not be overwhelming...sort of like all those fancy wine descriptions that involve "hints of oak and notes of kumquat." (When kumquat start writing you notes, then you know you've had too much wine...I'm just sayin'.)

However, the one good thing to come out of this is that the parchment paper was a great success in keeping the cake from sticking. I like that part.

And, all was not totally lost for the day, because I made a smacking good dip, which was the main thing I was taking to the party anyway, and I'll post that recipe in my next entry, 'cause I'm tired and I have to get some sleep and put on my game face for the customer tomorrow...kind of like the Fat Dog.

The Last Taste of Summer

Labor Day is the last hurrah of summer...yeah, yeah, it can get back up to 90+ degrees in October in the South, but officially, Labor Day Weekend is the last 3 days to pack in as much fun, sun, barbecue, and watermelon as you possibly can in 3 short days.

I'm munching down on part of a watermelon that I caged from my mother, who got it and a wonderful, mouth-watering tomato, from some random roadside stand. This particular watermelon is one of those Holy Grail foods that you remember from your childhood...a food that in memory is so good, so succulent, so tasty, that you search for that elusive flavor for the rest of your life, trying to recapture those lost moments in time.

(I've also got some half-remembered recipe for cinnamon rolls made from canned biscuits, with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, that are covered with milk. When they bake, the bottom is kind of sweet and gooey, and the top has a flaky cinnamon crust. I've been trying to replicate this recipe since I was in grade school, and saw the lady who ran our summer day care make these. I would have walked miles on hot coals for these things. I can't seem to get the ratios right to make them correctly. I haven't tried in years and year, but maybe it's time once again.)

While visiting my mom earlier in the week, she managed to talk me into taking half of this large watermelon. I agreed to humor her, mainly because I sort of found it interesting that she was channeling her 1950s mom genes and foisting food on me...even though it wasn't food she made herself. : )

I cut in to the melon and take off that little ragged edge that I always seem to make when whacking a melon in half...symmetry is just not my style...and popped it in my mouth. It was breathtaking in its sweetness and flavor--just so watermelony--not like those half-ripened bland melons that appear in the produce section. The flavor took me back to countless summer weekends, sitting around the kitchen table with my grandmother, eating so much watermelon that we thought we would burst. For us, for some reason, we only ate watermelon on the weekends or at some family reunion/get-together. It wasn't an every day food, and I guess, somewhere deep down, I've always felt like watermelon is special treat, because we made such a production out of eating it. Now, I realize that it was probably because of the messiness factor, laying down newspaper to catch the liquid and trying not to get seeds everywhere, and then saving seeds of an especially good melon and trying to grow it again next year.

My grandmother always ate her watermelon with a sprinkle of salt, and always encouraged me to try it that way, but I'm a purist. I like it unadulterated and usually in a slice that I can eat directly from...it sort of makes me feel a little like a Lost Boy, probably from that primal part of my brain that likes to gnaw on a pork chop bone, too...which she always says we could do at home but not at other people's houses...unless they were relatives, because all my relatives would gnaw on a pork chop bone and not think twice about it. (And let's face it, most everyone else gnaws their pork chop bones in the privacy of their own homes, too.)

My grandmother died 3 Labor Day weekends ago, and I still miss her and I think about her every time I eat an especially good watermelon...a "homegrown" one, bought from a little old man out of the back of a pickup truck, like some illicit produce dealer. And, you know which of these "truck farmers" have the best stuff. "Psst, dude--you got any of them melons you had last week? Yeah, the ones that were real red and sweet...I need 2 this time. And 'maters--I need some 'maters, too."

Watermelon wasn't the only thing on the menu this weekend--I experimented with the smoker and grilled a bit, and I'll write more about that later, after get some coherent recipe together for the Bourbon-Brined Pork Butt that really did turn out awesome, even if it destroyed the house.

But for now, I'm going to eat my watermelon and watch The Closer...a guilty please that I have come to late in the series life, and wish summer could last forever like it seemed to when I was young. And, Grandmama, I love you, but I'm still not putting salt on my watermelon.