Red Velvet Cake

I made an awful cake over the weekend. Using an untested Times recipe, I blundered through the process and produced one of the worst tasting cakes in the history of cakedom.

While I generally work with butter as a shortening in my cakes, this one asked for Canola oil. In addition to baking powder, this recipe needed vinegar. Let’s not talk about the $9.00 worth of red food coloring…..

Somehow, the cake came out tasting slightly of fish.

Did I have some residue in the oven from the stuffed fillet of sole we made the other night? Was the canola oil rancid? Does red food coloring come from the sea? Did someone lay a trout across the cake pan just before I poured the batter? I don’t know.

The frosting recipe seemed to work and I reluctantly applied it to the cake even though I suspected something was off after they came out of the oven. If I were a better baker I would have trashed the first cakes and remade them. I was pressed for time. I had to prepare a birthday party and I just couldn’t spare the extra hour.

So how can I move forward from disaster? Everyone was very nice about the cake but no one had seconds. The cake looked pretty, funny aftertaste though.

I’ll try it again with butter maybe or with a different food color.

It’s a setback…….