The Oceanic Velvet Cake with a Mother of Pearl Frosting©

My favourite cake is the Red Velvet cake. I like the colour, the texture, the salty-sweet-cream cheese frosting and that mild zing of flavours which alternate between cocoa, vanilla and citrusy. I am not a food blogger. I just have started blogging about food because the pandemic has invariably brought out the chef in me and I have started experimenting on a scale I would not otherwise have. I am usually satisfied with a small cake. It takes less time and less effort… that’s what I thought. Until I decided to make a layered cake. Same time and same amount of effort. After I was done, I realised that baking actually isn’t rocket science. It does take some patience, understanding of how ingredients combine and a bit of artistry to make it pretty. I compensate for my lack of artistry with imagination and creativity.

I had set out to bake me a Red Velvet cake. The moment I realised that my birthday will also be during the lockdown I knew I’d have to go about fixing this with yet another baking adventure. In my Mango Cheesecake recipe, I mentioned how I had tried to go all natural with very little sugar but was disappointed that agar-agar wasn’t in stores and I had to make do with gelatine. Hence this time I decided I will try my best to keep additives out. I got 300gms of beet dried them and powdered them and was very pleased with the results. When I added it to the cake batter instead of turning into a nice bright red, it turned into a brick brown shade so I looked over at the other half of the batter and added some blue food colouring and it turned moss green. I put them in the microwave and when they were out one looked like a freshly baked brick and the other looked like a compact moss disk. I let them cool. When I started layering and frosting instead of levelling the cake, I decided to keep the dome shape of the cake. As I lathered the frosting the cake started to look more like a Pearl to me. Does it look like a pearl to you? Hence, I decided to call it – The Oceanic Velvet Cake with a Mother of Peal Frosting. Sounds fancy? Like I said what I lack in artistry I make up with imagination and creativity. Let’s get started with recipe, shall we?

Here’s what you need to make the velvety sponge and cream cheese frosting:

*Velvety Sponge*	*Cream Cheese Frosting*
Ø 180g Cake flour	Ø 200g Cream cheese
Ø ½ tsp Baking soda	Ø 60g Butter
Ø 1 tbsp Cocoa powder	Ø 175g Icing sugar
Ø 1/4^th tsp Salt	Ø 8ml Heavy cream (2Tbsp)
Ø 60g Butter	Ø ½ tsp Vanilla
Ø 200g Sugar	Ø Pinch of salt
Ø 120ml Oil
Ø 2 large eggs (Separate yolk and whites)
Ø ½ tbsp Vanilla
Ø ½ tsp Vinegar
Ø 120ml Buttermilk

Note: All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Now that you have your ingredients simply follow the following steps:

Step 1: Sift cake flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt. I sift it 3 times and then whisk it to make sure the ingredients have blended well. Set aside.

Step 2: Beat butter and sugar till combined. Then add oil, yolk, vanilla, vinegar and beat it till you get a smooth mixture. Set aside.

Step 3: Now beat the whites till you get stiff peaks.

Step 4: Now in thirds add the dry ingredients to the wet batter alternating with buttermilk. (Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients then a bit of butter milk. This step is done thrice in total.) Mix well until the flour is combined into the mixture.

Step 5: Now fold in the egg whites into this batter gently. Use a rubber spatula to combine and DO NOT whisk.

Step 6: Now divide the batter into two and add food colouring of your choice. (I used homemade beet powder and store-bought blue food colouring.)

Step 7: Take 2, 6-inch cake trays and line them with butter paper. If you don’t have butter paper then grease the pan with butter and add some flour and tap it around the tray till the tray is completely coated with flour. Turn your tray upside down to remove any excess flour. Pour your cake batter into the tray and tap it twice to remove air bubbles.

Step 8: Pre-heat your oven/microwave to 180℃ (350℉)/160℃ (320℉) and bake the cakes at the same temperature for 35 minutes.

Step 9: Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about 10 -15 minutes then remove the cake from the tray and set it on a cooling rack.

Step 10: Once the cake cools down, refrigerate it for an hour or over night before decorating it with frosting. I use cling wrap to keep them moist.

For the frosting:

Step 1: Beat the butter and cream cheese together. Once mixed well add sugar and mix till well combined. Do not beat it too much or the mixture will become runny.

Step 2: Add the heavy cream, Vanilla and salt and mix well.

Assembling the cake

Step 1: Slice the cake into two round disks each. Use the bottom layer of the red cake as the bottom most layer then smooth some frosting on it and top it with the levelled top layer of the blue cake. Repeat the process until you put the dome shaped red layer on as the top most layer.

Step 2: Gently coat it with frosting all around and freeze the cake for 15 minutes before you add the next layer of frosting. Do this at least 3 times to get a nice thick layer of frosting.

Step 3: Once done, refrigerate until serving time.

Tweaks and Tricks:

Ø I make my own cake flour. To make 180g of cake flour, you will need 168g all purpose flour and 12g of corn flour. Sift the two together at least twice and you have your cake flour. I generally prepare a batch of 500g.

Ø If you don’t have butter milk, you can take 1tbsp of lemon juice and add half a cup(120ml) of milk to it and set it aside for 5 minutes.

Ø I followed this post from the internet to make my own beet powder. Do not bother making beet powder during monsoons as beets oxidise easily and you will be left with brown powder instead of a dark pink.

Ø Microwave convection ovens cook faster hence use this simple trick for any baking – always cook it 20℃ less than the required traditional oven temperature.

Ø Refrigerating your cake will make decorating the cake with frosting very easy.

Ø If your frosting is thick, cautiously add a few drops of milk. If your frosting is runny then add more sugar.