Birthday Ritual

As the family pastry gal, I am always eager for the challenge of a birthday. I always require that the Birthday Boy/Girl choose their favorite cake or sweet to celebrate their day. This time it was Sean's birthday and of course he had to pick something with either lots of food coloring or sprinkles... if he had it his way, he would pick both and then flavor it with mango. (Let's just say he still has the palate of a 6 yr old.)

His choice this year... Red Velvet Cake.

I have made this one other time and found it to be remarkably adaptable for the non-egg eaters that I am surrounded by. I adapted this recipe found on epicurious.com (a gem of a recipe-finder).

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/RED-VELVET-CAKE-WITH-RASPBERRIES-AND-BLUEBERRIES-108256

The modifications I made are as follows.

1. Instead of the eggs, I used 2T of apple sauce for each.
2. No berries.

I would have liked to use berries, however they were Remarkably overpriced at Randall's (get it!). Also, I would recommend using a little bit of egg-replacer if you try this one out, because the cake, while incredibly moist, was a bit on the dense side. I thought that it was also a little too sweet, but that is the way that Sean likes it and he was very happy with the outcome. He actually ate most of it over the course of the week. The icing recipe was terrific and I will definitely use that again for other creations.

Pictures to be posted in the next few days... (Waiting for camera to recharge)