Murder Was the Cake

I double checked the lyrics from Snoop Dogg's 1993 hit . . . turns out it is murder was the case that they gave me, not cake, my mistake. I still cranked it up while making the cake for this evening's festivities and the pictures will tell you why. As I dumped the entire bottle of red food coloring into the wet ingredients for the red velvet cake, it took on the appearance of batter that had a cap popped in it.


I had to do some ducking and dodging while mixing to avoid the few random drops flung by the beaters of the hand mixer as the batter took on a uniform color, red, very red.


After 20 minutes in the oven, the cake was still red, now a little more solid. This is no trick of photography and there is no Photoshoppery going on here, just one fluid ounce of FD&C red, numbers 40 and 3.


A closer look with some more lighting show the cake for what it is, red.


I haven't been able to find a good answer as to how and why on this cake, but it appears to be a Southern tradition of sorts, with the possible explanation being that originally the reaction of the acids in the cake with the cocoa lead to the reddish hue. Now, there's no monkeying around since food dies are perfectly safe, so they say.

Since I'm about a year behind the times apparently (please tell me somebody appreciated that one), I decided to give it my own little twist. How could you possibly go wrong with a chocolaty cake and bourbon cream cheese icing? I don't think you can, but the taste test will tell tonight.

In other baking news, I fired up the oven this morning to turn out this lovely looking loaf of bread.


I have to wait until tonight to cut into it, but it is one of the prettiest loaves I have made to date. Hopefully the inside will have that nice, light, airy texture that it should.


If not, there's always next time . . . besides, who are you to criticize, what did you bake today? I'll put up pictures of the iced cake as soon as it is complete.