Neymar Jr Jersey Cake

It has been awhile since I decorated a cake.  The last one was exactly one year ago when I decorated a One Direction cake for my niece.  Well this year she has gotten over Niall Horan and is now in love with Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, a Brazilian soccer player.  So this year she is getting a Neymar jersey cake. Ta Da...

I'm not a great cake decorator, but she was pleased with my efforts.  And the inside of the cake was Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet (recipe at bottom) so she was really, really happy about that.  Here are all the ingredients that go into the cake.  Note that I use powdered buttermilk instead of the fresh, liquid stuff.  I've made hundreds of Red Velvet cakes using both fresh and powdered buttermilk, and honestly I can't tell the difference.

Below is the cake being mixed.  The original Cake Man Raven recipe called for mixing with an electric mixer, but for me the combination of red food color and an electric mixer never turned out well so now I just use a whisk.  For this cake I baked a double batch, so I ended up with 4, 10" square cakes.  But a word of warning: make sure you line your pans with parchment paper.  This cake will stick to the bottom of the pan if you don't take precautions.  After baking I iced the layers with a crusting cream cheese frosting. (recipe at bottom).

After frosting and stacking the cakes, I placed them in the freezer for about 30 minutes.  This gets the cakes firm enough to cut and shape.  After cutting and shaping comes a thin crumb coat, and then back in the freezer for another 30 minutes.  Chilling the crumb coat keeps it from sticking to the fondant as you tug, push, and smooth everything into place.

Next comes the fondant.  I'm all about making things easy so I used my latest discovery Via Roma Bakery Fondant.  This stuff is great.  It is soft right out of the box so it doesn't need any kneading or microwaving.  It takes color pretty well, but I did noticed a tiny bit of marbling when I tried to make darker colors.  No matter how long or how vigorously I kneaded the dark blue fondant it still had faint streaks of lighter blue.  My Wilton food colors were also old and a little hard, so I ended up with hard flecks of dried food coloring in the final fondant.  I tried to pick them out, but I didn't get them all.  I think I'm going to switch to the AmeriColor brand, I'm hoping they don't dry out as much.  But regardless of which coloring I use, next time I make a fondant cake I'm going to buy boxes of the pre-colored stuff.  No more kneading for me.

I also like the Via Roma Fondant because it rolls so easily.  You can even get it down to a paper-thin thickness of 1/24" inch.  I don't even bother using guides on the rolling pin.  I just roll and roll till the fondant doesn't stretch any more.  I also roll using Sweet Wise's The Mat.  This is another great time saving tool.  With The Mat it is so easy to transfer the fondant to the cake.  No creases, folds, tear or tears.

Onto the cake the fondant goes...

 

Next some red fondant cut into strips for the jersey decorations.  I used a Wilton fondant cutter and embosser.  It works okay, but it is a little difficult keeping it straight and steady.  

 

Red and yellow stripes on the cake.  It is starting to come together.

Next all the lettering.  I used the Wilton fondant cutouts for the letters, but in that kit all the letters are capitals.  Capital letters are okay for Neymar's name, but the other text (like unicef and beko) should have been in lower case letters.  And I didn't know this till later, but apparently unicef, beko, and LFP are the team's sponsors.  Nike and Qatar Airlines are also sponsors, but their logos are on the front of the jersey.  I should have made a jersey that stood on end and showed both sides.

And finally the finishing touches of thin ribbons of fondant scored to look like stitching.  Another Wilton tool: the fondant wheel cutter/embosser.  Wilton has a tool for everything. 

So my niece was pleased with her birthday present: the Nike Neymar Barcelona Home Jersey 15/16...

And she was also pleased with a cake that kind-of, sort-of, looked like a Neymar Jr jersey...

And all that work --- gone in 60 seconds.

But it sure did taste good.

Happy Baking (and Decorating),

Carol

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Red Velvet Cake Recipe 

( from Cakeman Raven & Southern Red Velvet)

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups Cake Flour
1-1/2 cups Granulated White Sugar 
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon fine salt ( I use popcorn salt )
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder

1-1/2 cups Vegetable Oil
1 cup Buttermilk (or the powdered stuff with water)
2 large Eggs
2 Tablespoons Red Food Coloring
1 teaspoon Vinegar
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Directions:

1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2 - Grease and line with parchment paper 3 - 9" round pans. (Note: I like thicker cakes so I usually bake in 2 - 8" pans.)
3 - Sift together all dry ingredients
4 - Combine all wet ingredients 
5 - Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, whisk until smooth
6 - Bake 20-30 minutes till a tooth pick comes out moistly clean.  These cakes are super moist so don't over bake.

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Crusting Cream Cheese Icing 

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 lb (2-8oz bars) cream cheese, softened
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fine salt ( I use popcorn salt )
3-1/2 lbs (14 cups) sifted Confectioners' Sugar
1 teaspoon fine salt 

Directions:

1 - In a small cup dissolve salt in extract
2 - Cream butter, shortening, cream cheese, and extract mixture
3 - Gradually add confectioner's sugar 

This recipe will produce a frosting with a thick consistency.  For a thinner consistency use less sugar.  This frosting will crust when it dries.

Yield: 4-5 cups

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Marbled Red Velvet Cream Cheese Pound Cake - Yummmm

Red Velvet is my favorite cake flavor, and Pound Cake is my favorite type of cake. Put the two together and you get delicious. Add Cream Cheese and you get sinfully delicious.

I love everything Red Velvet so I have been toying with the idea of compiling all my favorite Red Velvet recipes into an e-book, but a quick search of Amazon found that someone had already done it! Damn, too late again.

Check out Debra Hart's Red Velvet Everything. The book has recipes for Red Velvet Cobbler, Red Velvet Tea Cakes, Red Velvet Fudge, etc, etc. So many choices so little stretch left in my jeans.

For my first Red Velvet Everything baking adventure I decided on Red Velvet Cream Cheese Pound Cake. Just the name makes me drool. The recipe starts as a basic cream cheese pound cake but it gets fancy in the last stage when you split the batter add the Red Velvet “elixir” to one half.

At this point I have one bowl of red batter on one of yellow batter.  Next the recipe instructions tell you to add 1-1/2 cups of flour to the red mix and the remaining 1-1/2 cups to the yellow mix.   Huh???  That step had me worried.  I didn’t think to weigh the bowls of wet batter to ensure that they each had the same amount.  Did I get more batter in one bowl and less in the other?  Would this throw off the ratios and put too much or too little flour in relation to the butter/sugar/eggs?  Would my cake be too wet or too dry?  Would my Red Velvet Cream Cheese Pound Cake be a flop?Oh the horror!!

Well, too late to worry about it now.  But NEXT TIME I will weigh the batter to make sure the amounts are equal,  or better yet mix in the flour before dividing the batter.   That would eliminate any potential screw-ups.

 

Next the instructions tell you to drop spoonfuls of the batter into the prepared tube pan alternating between the red and the yellow batters.  I bought a new silicon tube pan just for this cake.  For some reason my oven burns every cake I bake in the traditional metal bundt pans, so I wanted to give the silicon pan a try.  The HIC Fluted Pan is a pretty red color, which sadly doesn’t show up well against the red batter of the cake.  Sorry….

So I’m moving along happily filling my pan spoonful by spoonful when I realized I have too much batter and not enough pan.  The recipe didn't list what size pan to use, so naive little me just assumed that the batter would all fit in the pan "I" happened to select.  I’m constantly amazed at how oblivious I can be…

But not to worry.  I greased up some of my mini tube pans, and soon I was spooning again.

In fact the batter shows up much better against the metal pan.

Next you swirl the two colored batters together.  Pretty.

Then bake.  I baked the mini tube pan for about 30 minutes, and the big pan for about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The mini pan cakes came out perfect.

But the large cake was slightly over baked.  I baked until to toothpick tester came out clean, but next time I would take it out when a few crumbles still clung to the tooth pick.  Better to under baked than over baked.

Next came a simple sugar glaze.  Then the slicing and big reveal.

Too cute.  The red and yellow swirls look amazing.  The colors are still distinct, but they swirl together like young lovers.  So romantic.  Definitely a cake for Valentine’s Day.

The larger cake looks just as swirly and delicious, but I had to add some whipped cream to give it a little moisture.

So all-in-all my first test from the Red Velvet Everything cook book was a great success.  Now I just have to figure out what to bake next.  With 50+ recipes in the book it will be a hard decision to make.

The people at work are going to love/kill me,

Carol



PS: for a similar version of Red Velvet Cream Cheese Pound Cake check out this YouTube video by Cicone.

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Red Velvet Cream Cheese Pound Cake

By Debra Hart

From the book: Red Velvet Everything

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups   Unsalted butter, softened

8 oz              Cream Cheese, softened

3 cups          Sugar, granulated

5                    Eggs, large

1-1/2 tsp       Vanilla 

1/4 cup         Buttermilk 

2 TBLS         Cocoa Powder, sifted

1 tsp              Apple Cider Vinegar

1 oz               Red Food Coloring

3 cups          Cake Flour



Directions

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Grease and flour a tube pan. 
• Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together. 
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
• Divide the batter between two bowls. Weigh to ensure that they are divided equally. 
• In a separate, small bowl combine buttermilk, cocoa, and vinegar. Whisk until smooth. Stir in food coloring. Add the red mixture to one of the bowls of batter. Stir until combined. 
• Add 1-1/2 cups of flour to each bowl of batter. Beat until just combined. (I just stirred the flour into the creamed mixture, I didn’t bother with the beaters.) 
• With a large spoon drop spoonfuls of batter into the prepared tube pan alternating between the two colored batters. 
•  Using a knife, gently swirl the two colors. (Don’t over-swirl. You want the colors to just wrap around each other.) 
• Bake at 300 degrees F for 1 hour and 35-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out (nearly) clean. 
• Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then gently remove the cake from the pan.

If desired glaze the cake with a powdered sugar glaze.

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Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off: Round 2

In mid-November I conducted a taste test of Red Velvet Cake recipes (see blog entry here). I baked 8 different cakes and recruited 25 people to sample and rate the entries. The undisputed winner of the Red Velvet Taste-Off : Round 1 was:

Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet Cake
But the day after I compiled my results, I ran across yet another distinctive Red Velvet Cake recipe. This one was from Rose's Levy Beranbaum book Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The actual cake is called Rose Red Velvet and for its fat is uses butter and oil. It also uses more eggs than any of the other recipes I tested. The person who brought this cake to my attention said it was better than Cake Man Raven's! That got my attention. Better than Cake Man Raven? Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off #2 was on.

For this round I baked three different recipes:

• Rose's Red Velvet - Rose Levy Beranbaum - the challenger
• Cake Man Raven's - because it had won the first round of the taste test
• Waldorf Astoria recipe with a tweak - My original reason for conducting this taste test was to find a recipe that mimicked the Red Velvet Cake sold at Piccadilly Cafeteria (the absolute best RVC). Flavor and color wise I think the Waldorf cake comes the closest, but it is not nearly as moist as Piccadilly's. So in this test I added 1/4 cup of light corn syrup hoping to give it a little more moisture. Sadly my tweaked Waldorf did not produce a copy cat of Piccadilly RVC. Granted my tweak cake was better than the original, but still not measure up to Piccadilly's caliber.

So here are the three cakes all stacked up:



And sliced open:



So which do you think won? Which do you think looks the best?

Well the winner yet again was Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet Cake.

The Waldorf cake came in second and the Rose Red Velvet cake came in third. In this round I only had 9 taste testers, as opposed to the 25 testers in round one. Two of the tasters (the kids) picked the Rose cake as their favorite (they said it was the sweetest), but the other 7 had it as their least favorite. One of the biggest complaints about the Rose RVC was that it was too dry and two people remarked that it had a spongy, angel food cake texture. If you want to see a spreadsheet listing all the results click here.

So after two unbiased tests, the oil based Red Velvet Cake is still reigns as the undisputed favorite.

BUT even as I write this someone handed me yet another RVC recipe. It is Red Velvet time of the year. This one used uses brown sugar instead of white and a 1/2 cup cocoa. I must test this recipe, so stay tuned for round 3 of the Ultimate Red Velvet Taste-Off (some time around Christmas).

Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Taste-Off: 8 Cakes, 25 Testers, 1 Winner

I've always been a big fan of Red Velvet Cake, and my absolute favorite RVC comes from Piccadilly's Cafeteria. Their version is very dense and moist and full of tangy, buttermilk flavor. They used to put pecans in the icing, but they stopped doing that because of nut allergies and law suit threats. What a sad, sad day that was when the waitress handed me that piece of cake sans pecans.

But I digress; the point of this blog post is to share the results of my Ultimate Red Velvet Taste Test. Here are the contenders all stacked up.



I started the experiment by scouring the internet for Red Velvet Cake recipes. There were a LOT! But most of the recipes fell into three categories: those containing Oil, those containing Shortening, and those containing Butter. There were also a few that used combinations of the three different fats, and some that deviated drastically from the norm.

My first step was to build a spreadsheet to help compare and contrast the different recipes and help decide which cakes to test (click HERE to download the spreadsheet). A lot of the recipes I looked at were exactly the same, so the spreadsheet only has recipes that are different in some way. The recipes fall into specific categories of: butter, oil, shortening, combination, and other. In the butter, oil and shortening categories I selected one recipe as the base, and noted how the other recipes in that category deviate from the “base”.

The largest percentage of recipes I found used BUTTER as the fat. The butter recipes I included on the spreadsheet are:

• Sylvia’s Red Velvet - from Emeril’s site
• Joy of Baking’s Red Velvet (same as Epicurious’ Red Velvet)
• Grandmother Paula’s Red Velvet – from Paula Deen at the Food Network
• Montclair Martha’s Red Velvet – from Martha Stewart
• Hummingbird’s Red Velvet
• Magnolia Bakery’s Red Velvet
• Brown Derby Red Velvet
• Cooks Country Red Velvet
• Christmas Red Velvet - from The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather

The recipes are very similar with just minor changes in sugar, cocoa, and vinegar content. In the end I selected Paula Deen’s version as the "typical butter” RVC . I also selected Rebecca Rather’s version because it added sour cream in addition to the butter.

In the OIL category of RVC are:

• Cake Man Raven’s Southern Red Velvet (same as Apple a Day and Saveur)
• Rachel’s Red Velvet – from Martha Stewart
• Sara Moulton’s Southern Red Velvet
• Smitten Kitchen's Red Velvet Cake from “The Confetti Cakes Cookbook” by Elisa Stauss
• Bobby Flay’s Red Velvet Cake

Because it is so famous, I selected the Cake Man Raven version. I also selected Bobby Flay’s version which uses a combination of oil and butter.

Next were the SHORTENING RVCs. This category had the smallest number of recipe variations but it includes the most famous of them all: Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake. I also found a variation of the Waldorf recipe that included Cane Syrup. The syrup recipe looked interesting (could Cane Syrup possibly be the secret to Piccadilly's unique RVC?) so I included it in the baking lineup.

Last but not least is the OTHER category of RVC recipes. I recently received a copy of Melissa Gray’s book All Cakes Considered which includes a RVC recipe that contains no buttermilk. Hummm. I was curious enough to add her version to the experiment.

So in the end I settled on 8 different RVC recipes to use in my taste test:

1. Grandmother Paula’s Red Velvet Cake – Paula Deen (butter)
2. Cake Man Raven’s Southern Red Velvet (oil)
3. Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake (shortening)
4. Bobby Flay’s Red Velvet Cake (butter & oil)
5. Louisiana Red Velvet (shortening & cane syrup)
6. The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather’s Christmas Red Velvet Cake (butter & sour cream)
7. Melissa Gray’s Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake (no buttermilk, sour cream)
8. Duncan Hines Red Velvet Box Mix – YES a box mix. I wanted to see how a box mix compared to the scratch recipes.

On the morning of November 16, 2009 the baking began. I set up an assembly line, preheated the oven, and began to mix, whisk and bake. Seven hours later I was finished. Whew, what a marathon. The next morning I hauled everything to work: eight cakes, a huge tub of cream cheese icing, plates, forks, and a stack of scoring sheets.

Once at work (I got there an hour early), I unwrapped and iced all the cakes and added sprinkles to each so the taste tester could identify them. Blue sprinkles, green sugar, yellow balls, each cake had its own unique topping.

Each cake was sliced into thin wedges and a wedge of each was placed on a plate.


The tasters themselves were carefully selected because of their love of cake and their familiarity with Red Velvet Cake in particular. There are over 200 people in the office and only 25 of them got cake. Some people where kinda pissed that they weren’t “selected”, but hey, you can only get so many slices from a cake. It is also worth noting that the cakes were frosted but the testers were asked to base their cake critique on just the cake and not the cake and icing combination.

The result sheets trickled in during the day (some people didn’t want to eat their cakes until lunch), and I was amazed at the variety of responses. What really gave me pause were the critiques of the icing (remember I told them that the icing wasn't part of the test). One person, in addition to the cake ratings, rated the icing. She loved some of the icings and hated others. She said one had a “flour” taste and another she said didn’t have enough sugar. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that all the cakes had the exact same cream cheese icing. The only thing I can figure is that the icing took on different flavors and nuances when eaten with the cake. Strange how the mind and taste buds work.

But on to the results. I know you are dying to know which cake WON.

Drum roll please.

The winner of the first Ultimate Red Velvet Taste-Off is...

is...

Cake Man Raven’s Red Velvet Cake
The oil based cake beat out the butter. Are you surprised? Shocked?

Here is a detail ranking of cakes.

Note that “1” is the best possible score, and “8” is the worst possible score. The cakes were ranked 1-8 with the taster's favorite cake given a score of "1" (first place), their second favorite given a score of "2" (second place), and so on. Their least favorite cake was given the rank of "8" (eighth place). Also, 5 people didn’t give me back my sheets (yet).

In FIRST place: Cake Man Raven’s Red Velvet Cake – score 2.85

• 11 people gave it a “best cake” scores of 1 or 2, 8 people gave it an “average” score of 3, 4, 5, or 6, and 1 person gave it a “worst cake” score of 7 or 8.


• Common Tasters Comments: Moist, light and fluffy, melts in your mouth. Although one person said it was dry, another said it had no flavor, and a third said that it tasted like a “box” mix. Ironically the person who said this cake tasted like a box mix gave the Duncan Hines cake very high marks.

In SECOND place: The Pastry Queen, Rebecca Rather’s RVC – score 3.8

• 6 rated it the “best”, 13 rated it “average”, 1 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Moist, too dense, a little sticky, packs in the mouth, mushy, less sweet. One person said it had a soapy taste.


• I found the the Pastry Queen's cake looked the best. It was light and fluffy and had a bright red color. I did have trouble applying the icing though, the surface of the cake crumbled and the fine crumbs bled/mixed into the icing.

In THIRD place: Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake – score 3.85

• 5 rated it the “best”, 12 rated it “average”, 3 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Dry, good flavor, chocolaty, traditional.

In FOURTH place: Duncan Hines Red Velvet Box Mix – score 3.9

• 6 rated it the “best”, 11 rated it “average”, 3 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Chocolate taste, light and airy, good texture, light flavor, a little dry and bland.

In FIFTH Place: Louisiana Red Velvet – score 4.05

• 7 rated it the “best”, 7 rated it “average”, 6 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Dense, a little sticky, not sweet enough, don’t like the flavor, strange taste, rum-like flavor, traditional red velvet, fruity flavor.


• The Cane Syrup in this cake caused a love-it or hate-it reaction in the taste-testers. This cake definitely had a “different” taste and people either devoured it or tossed it in the trash.

In SIXTH Place: Grandmother Paula's Red Velvet Cake - Paula Deen – score 4.7

• 4 rated it the “best”, 11 rated it “average”, 5 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Buttery, pleasant taste, light & moist, moist but crumbly in the mouth, too gooey, sticks to the roof of mouth, too soft, needs to be denser, needs more texture, okay taste but weird texture.


• I was surprised that the “butter” cake rated so low because in my mind everything is better with butter.

In SEVENTH Place: Bobby Flay's Red Velvet Cake – score 5.75

• 1 rated it the “best”, 12 rated it “average”, 7 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Chocolate taste, a little drier than others, don’t like, fluffy, bland, no flavor, good taste but more like devil’s food than red velvet.


• It really surprised me that Bobby Flay’s recipe ranked so low. I thought the combination of butter and oil would produce a winning cake.

In EIGHTH Place: Melissa Gray's Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake– score 7.1

• 0 rated it the “best”, 6 rated it “average”, 14 rated it “worst”.


• Common Tasters Comments: Does not taste like Red Velvet, dry, bland, slightly bitter, more like devil’s food cake, too dense and firm.


• This cake was universally disliked in RVC taste test. In my opinion the cake itself had a good taste, if slightly on the dry side, but it just didn’t taste like Red Velvet. It was more like a yellow pound cake with red food color and cocoa added.

Click HERE to see all the results.

So what do you think of my results? Do you agree or disagree. I was really surprised at the diversity of opinions on each the cakes and I’ve come to realize that one cake will never satisfy all the people all the time. Next time I bake a three layer Red Velvet Cake I’m going to make each layer a different recipe: Cake Man Raven, The Pastry Queen, and Waldorf Astoria. Hopefully my Threesome Red Velvet Cake will satisfy everyone.


PS: I’m also thinking about doing another round of RVC testing. I still can’t believe that Bobby Flay’s recipe came in so low (did I do something wrong?), and I found another recipe by Rose Levy that uses butter and oil (like Bobby’s) but only uses egg whites instead of whole eggs. I still have some buttermilk and red food color left over from the first round, so I’m going to preheat my oven and start RVC baking again.

Update December 3, 2009:
To see the results of the Red Velvet Taste-Off - Round 2 click here.

Crawfish Boil

Every year on the weekend before Memorial Day my brother, David, has a big crawfish boil. Here is a batch jut coming out of the pot and in the background is the second batch of live crawfish waiting for their turn in the sauna (poor things).
















This year my brother bought a big "pirouge" serving boat. He was so proud of that thing.


















And here is a scoop of crawfish waiting to be eaten by me. Traditional accompani-
ments to the crawfish are corn on the cob, potatoes, sausage, garlic and mushrooms. And BUTTER, lots and lots of butter squirted on the corn and potatoes.




My contribution to the party was of course the desserts. Pralines, brownies, red velvet sandwich cookies, and burger cupcakes. I also made deviled eggs, not a dessert but still damn good.


Here are the pralines. Yum....
I use a typical praline recipe: white sugar, brown sugar, butter, milk, pecan, etc. The real "art" of praline cooking is temperature. Too low and the pralines are gritty, too high and the pralines are brittle. Like Goldilocks, the temperature needs to be just right.







The brownies... Actually brownie - chocolate chip cookie combo with chocolate icing...



The Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies... this is a Paul Deen recipe that has become a family favorite. I make it without the pecans because one of my brothers is allergic to nuts. PS: the Paula Dean recipe makes waaaaayyyy too much icing. I cut the icing recipe in half and still have leftovers.



The burger cupcakes and sugar cookie French fries... A favorite with the kids.





The deviled eggs... Made with olives - a family recipe.