Red velvet - I don't think so!

This week I haven't been in a baking mood. I think it is to do with the fact that I feel there are so many more things that we need to be getting on with regarding the move, but we can't until we get some other things out of the way. One good thing is that Fin finished school this week for the summer. We have to collect his "grades" on Monday. I put "grades" in inverted commas because he has only finished the first year and I am not sure yet how serious grades are at that age. No doubt we will find out on Monday! In a another week to ten days we should be able to turn our attention to actually finding a place and moving.

Anyway, today was the first day I felt like getting the mixer out and I decided to have another go at making red velvet cake/cupcakes. The trouble is... I just cannot under any circumstances bring myself to put that amount of red food coloring into a cake! I JUST CAN'T DO IT!! This is my second attempt. The first time I did vanilla cake which turned out a pleasant pink shade but by no means could you call them red velvet. This time I added a dash of cocoa powder. It just turned out looking like a very tasty chocolate cake. So the big problem is the coloring. It just seems to go against my whole being to add so much fake color just to get it red! It's not like it adds to the flavor after all.

I am beginning to think that red velvet won't be featuring on my menu in the shop. I did read somewhere out there on the net that someone of a similar mind to me made them with beetroot for coloring and it's something I might consider trying when I have a little time to experiment. Maybe I can add them to the vegetable range. It could be quite good. Chocolate and courgette (that's zucchini to the Americans reading, and I'll tell an amusing story about my first attempt at those another day), sweet pea, carrot (of course) and another recipe I found on tastespotting and really want to try is brownies with spinach! I can market them to parents whose kids won't eat healthily, although I am not sure the value of getting kids to eat cake in order to eat veg... How many cakes will they have to eat to get their RDA? How about 'get your 5 a day from 5 different cakes' a day??? Maybe NOT!

Oh well. I didn't have the chance to frost the nice brown red velvet cakes so stay tuned for some pictures of those coming up and then I will mention another pressing issue.

Liz