Recipe - Red Velvet Cake

I have been trying to commit myself to trying out at least one new recipe a week, so mine for last week was to make red velvet cake from scratch. Well the real goal was to make red velvet truffles but I didn't want to buy any cake so decided I need to make my own cake. The recipe for the truffles will go live on Mother's Day. Anyhow, I opted to go with this recipe and ended up with a lot of cake. If you're going for this, please make sure to have a reason to have so much cake. Seriously, it's a lot. Also, I didn't use nearly enough food coloring to make it a beautiful rich red color. Oh well. I adapted one small thing in the recipe below.

Step 1: Ingredients (yields 9x13 cake or 3 round cake layers)

• red food coloring
• 1/4 tbsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract
• 6 eggs

Step 2: Mixing the ingredients
In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugars and butter. Then slowly add in the eggs, one at a time. Cream together thoroughly after every egg drop before adding another. Afterward, add the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, and baking powder.

Step 3: Incorporating the ingredients
Pre-heat an oven to 325°F. To the bowl with the wet ingredients, alternate between adding 1 cup of the flour mixture and 1/3 cup of sour cream. Make sure everything is thoroughly combined before adding another cup or 1/3 cup of something. Repeat until all ingredients are used up. Then add red food coloring several drops at a time until desired color is reached.

Step 4: Finishing
Pour mixture into desired pan sizes (I used a 9" x 13" but the original recipe calls for 3 round cake pans; my cake was very thick). Bake for 40-45 minutes in oven. To check if it is done, stick a toothpick through the center; if it comes out clean, it's done. Once it is finished, pull out of oven to cool. Frost after thoroughly cooled. I used a cookie cutter round to make my cake into mini-cakes with double frosting. It was fun. Enjoy your cake!