June SRS -Red Velvet Cake!

Today Amy and I are involved in the SRS, Surprise Recipe Swap!  We are involved once a month in this fun swap! We love doing it because, it introduces us to other food blogger's, build's blogging friendships and is a lot of fun for our readers too! It's also a great way to add more exposure to your blog - increasing your traffic by getting link backs from others, being mentioned on social media networks, simply finding new followers.  Jutta over at Hungry Little Girl, started a "Surprise Recipe Swap", where we make a recipe from a blogger who I am assigned to and post it on the 20th of the month. Someone else get's my blog, chooses a recipe and posts it on their blog. If you are a blogger who would like to join in on the fun, just pop over to Hungry Little Girl.

This month our partner is Sarah, from Sarah Lynn's Sweets.  To say she loves to blog about sweet's is an understatement!! She has just about every sweet tooth covered!! When she first started blogging she only blogged about cupcakes, noting that she didn't get much traffic, she has expanded to pies, cookies, bars and most recently she has added some savory dishes. I had a hard time deciding what recipe to make and blog about, so, I asked Amy to take a look. Amy was so quick to say, " Nate's Birthday is coming and Holly says he would like Red Velvet Cake!" We were planning to make the cake together, however, Wee Bear and I were called on for a friends wedding in Las Vegas. So, Amy made the cake! Oh my, was it delicious! We had a lot of fun with family and Nate was surprised by his delicious Red Velvet Cake and his Mother's surprise visit from her new home in Eastern Washington!

Hand off to Amy~

I changed the recipe a bit from Sarah's Red Velvet with a Kick, found here http://sarahlynnssweets.blogspot.com/2012/10/art-imitates-life-change-and-red-velvet.html. I omitted the cayenne pepper as I wasn't sure how that would be received by the birthday boy. Without that one ingredient it was still a delicious moist and flavorful cake. I also used Sarah's recipe for cream cheese frosting. 

As JJ said, it was a hit!

Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients:
1 stick butter; softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2oz. red food coloring gel (add more if you want a more vibrant red)
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar
3. Continue beating mixture as you add eggs one at a time
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa and red coloring gel
5. Add the cocoa mixture to the butter and beat until blended
6. Alternately mix in portions of the buttermilk and flour
7. Beat in the vanilla, baking soda and cinnamon
8. Pour into greased/sprayed pans (I would recommend also lining the pans with parchment paper as this is a moist cake and will stick) -I used three 8-inch pans. 
9. Depending on pan size, bake for around 25-35 minutes

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
8oz cream cheese; room temp
1 stick butter; room temp
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Beat together cream cheese and butter until creamy
2. Add vanilla and mix well
3. Beat in small portions of the powdered sugar and after beating in 2 cups, taste the frosting and add more until desired sweetness is achieved. 

We are off to Chelan, with all the family! Over 20 again this year! But, no worries Amy and I will be blogging again on Monday and Friday.

Cheers!
Amy and JJ