My Red Velvet Cake

From the start of the week, I have been obsessing on baking this cake because I wanted to learn. (My mini-long term goal is to be able to create a tiered wedding cake!)Anyway, I started working on cupcakes and cookies, and when I think I got it, I dared myself to start baking cakes. So there, for this week, I wanted to create this cake. So I started going over the ingredients. Buttermilk! How on earth will I again find buttermilk in an Israeli grocery. (I can't even get a non-self raising Cake Flour!). I started looking for substitutes for buttermilk and saw here from Sarah's notes that it can be substituted with 2/3cup Yogurt and 1/3 Milk. And I got myself both from my office! Hehe, we have unlimited supply of dairy stuff here in our office (all Kosher though). I also started looking on what frosting to put because Cream Cheese here is quite expensive. I decided that I will go for the Mousseline Buttercream. I have no idea whether it's a no-no to use the red velvet layer together with this buttercream but it sounds delicious so there!Thursday night, I went to the grocery here to get some more butter and flour. Weekends here in Israel are Fridays and Saturdays, so I will be baking my cake on Friday. I decided that I will have a great dinner at home with my bf so I also got myself some wine at the grocery. I know too much info! Anyway, on with the baking story. I started at around 4pm when the sun starts setting so that it wont be too hot for the AC (I live by the sea). I started sifting the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt together. After sifting them all together and then ingredients were one on top of the other so I started mixing it, and then it started to get lumpy. I had to sift everything again! I also started mixing my Yogurt and milk with the Vanilla and the food coloring. It did not turn out red, but a little on the pink side even if I finished my red food coloring. I religiously followed the recipe and mixed according to the times indicated and I ended up with a slightly wet batter which I poured at my 9’ spring form pan which was generously greased. Once all poured, it was a little over the half of my pan, and I thought it would just be ok because my UBC experiment last week did not rise that much. But oh my! I was watching my cake being baked and it rose to more than the pan! And it did not bake by 30min mark (because it was too much in the pan). It baked at the 50min mark. I took it out to the wire rack at the first time I had passed the toothpick test. I tasted the crumbs that overflowed from the pan and it was very good and moist! J While cooling my cake, I started making my icing. I know what I was attempting was a really hard recipe for a beginner, but then again…no guts no glory! J I finished mixing the icing which turned out really good but was not stiff enough. It was good enough though to ice my cake.After cooling my cake for a good 40mins, I inverted the cake and cut it in half horizontally to be able to put icing in the middle. When I was putting the bottom part, I broke it in half! I was so disappointed with my clumsiness, and I have almost started to cry. But then again, my bf started fixing the bottom part together with me, like putting pieces of puzzles together. After putting together the bottom of the cake, I frosted it and you guessed it right, frost might have seeped through the bottom. Afterwards, I put back the top part. When it seemed whole again, I started putting crumb coat and after the first coat, it looked like a normal coat that never got broken! After 10mins in the fridge, I applied the final frosting. I still cannot smoothen my frosting properly, but it was better than my first attempt. So there’s my cake! It looks delicious!After our dinner (I cooked beef steak, potatoes and rice), we took out the cake that I meticulously created but got busted because of my clumsiness. I would say it still was a success! It was very moist, and very good, even if it was broken on the inside.Here’s a photo of how it looked like after. It definitely is not red, but it sure was a hit!