RED VELVET CAKE

 An utterly gorgeous cake, made extra tender with the use of buttermilk..seems like the old adage -"We eat with the eyes first".. comes true, whoever I have served it to seem first to fall in love with the attractive red colour and then the chocolaty tenderness of it. A great hit at parties and birthdays!

Ingredients-

Ground white sugar- 1 and ½ cups

Eggs-2

Cocoa- 4 tbsp

Butter- 1 cup, softened

Salt-1/2 tsp

Vanilla essence- 1 tsp

Buttermilk- 1 cup

Plain flour- 2 and ½ cups

Baking powder- 2 tsp

White vinegar- 1 tbsp

Red food colour- 4 tbsp

Baking soda- ½ tsp

For the icing-

300 ml heavy cream//Cream cheese( whatever is available, original recipe calls for cream cheese)

½ cup castor sugar

½ tsp vanilla essence

Method-

• Preheat oven to 200 degree C
• Grease and flour two 9- inch cake pans
• Cream butter and sugar together very well. Add eggs and beat well.
• Add the cocoa, food colour, salt, vanilla to the creamed mixture.
• Now alternately add flour and buttermilk, mix well, in the end add the vinegar.
• Pour batter into the prepared cake pans and bake for 30 minutes.
• Cool completely.

For the icing-

Take a  clean mixing bowl and combine cream/ cream cheese along with the rest of the ingredients, beat well till light and fluffy.

For assembling-

Sandwich the cake with a quarter of the prepared icing , spread the rest on top and sides.

Chill well before serving.