$300 Red Cake for Marriage Equality

OK, so this isn't exactly what I intended when I decided I would start blogging, but this recipe is a genuine expression of who I am.  Our family has served this cake at special occasions (birthdays, Valentines day, I'm-in-a-bad-mood-and-need-a-pick-me-up day) since the 1940's, at least.  It's a rich, moist, dense cake that is very forgiving of minor mistakes.  This is not a light and fluffy cake, nor is it a heavy fruitcake-like brick.  It's just perfect and absolutely delicious.

And today, in honor of marriage equality, I suggest that you bake it in 3 round cake pans so that the resulting cake looks like a red equals sign, like the Martha Stewart cake pic that's circulating the web these days.

Martha Stewart's Marriage Equality Red Cake https://twitter.com/MS_Living/status/316667784916508672/photo/1

$300 Red Cake

Recipe from Peggy Huggard, by way of Susie Sykes and Cindy Hoskey
(The story/urban myth surrounding this recipe, as told my grandmother, is that her friend had dinner at the Ritz in Manhattan and they served this cake for desert.  Her friend exclaimed how wonderful it is and commented to the waiter that she would love to have the recipe and he said, "Of course, madam."  And he promptly brought her the recipe.  To her surprise, days later when they went to check out from the hotel, they found a charge for $300 for the cake recipe on her bill.  The hotel refused to remove the charge, stating that she already had time to look at the recipe, so she decided to share it with every one of her friends.  Or so the story goes...)

2 oz red dye (2 boxes)
2 Tblsp unsweetened cocoa (powdered)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tblsp white vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Tip:  Stir this by hand - do not use a mixer.
Preheat oven to 350•. Make a paste of red dye and cocoa. Blend with sugar, butter, and eggs  Add buttermilk, salt, and flour.  Stir in vanilla, baking soda and vinegar. (Don't be alarmed if it foams!)
Butter 3 9" round cake pans lightly then dust with flour. Shake out excess flour. Pour in batter. Bake at 350• for 25 minutes (30 minutes.if using the standard 2 pans instead of 3).  If you stick a toothpick in near the center of the cake it should come out basically clean, with no uncooked batter stuck to it.

Buttercream frosting
Although, traditionally, red velvet cake is most often sold with cream cheese frosting, I very much prefer buttercream frosting.  
1 lb box of confectioners sugar
1/2 cup of butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
Between 2 and 4 tblsp buttermilk
Gradually add ingredients, stirring by hand or using a low setting on a mixer.  Only use as much buttermilk as needed to get the preferred consistency.  Frost the cake after it has cooled completely.

I hope you enjoy the cake.  Take pictures!!!!

My inner voice thanks Barb's inner voice

My friend, the brilliant writer Barb Cooper, recently blogged about listening to the still, small voice inside of each of us.  Well, my voice has been telling me to start a blog, among other things, for quite a long time now.  So I decided I'd just jump immediately before the louder, critical voices shout it down, as usual.  So, thank you so much, Barb.  It's particularly apt because one of those critical voices always says "Who are you to blog anything?  You're not a real writer like your friend Barb Cooper.  It's fine to write all these things in your head but they're best kept private since no one else wants to hear them anyway!"  So I say shut up to that critical voice and I'm going to write it anyway.  I have no idea how often I'll post anything - I guess I'll try to post when the voice says so.  And, no, I'm not psychotic - it's not THAT kind of voice.  ;-P

I'd be lying if I said I don't want anyone to read it and I'm just writing for the intellectual and emotional exercise.  I do like to feel that my voice has been heard, even though I'm often concerned that my friends and co-workers are tired of me always being the quickest and loudest one with any opinion.  But, truthfully, I don't always get the opportunity to fully explain where I'm coming from or what's going on in my heart, so I'm going to consider this an opportunity to add background and color to the things I would normally be saying out loud or posting as facebook statuses.

By now you may have already noticed that I like run-on sentences.  I tend to talk the way I speak, a tendency that my mother, the English teacher, tried to curb for 30 years.  But I feel like my voice is more clear and honest in this format than when I exhibit grammatical perfection so I'm going to just let it happen.  And I most likely will not be concise.  Once I get on a roll it's hard to edit it too much.  Maybe I'll get better at that with practice.  Or maybe I'll just write long, rambling blogs.

Now, back to my still, small voice.  It's saying to blog.  But it's also saying something else.  Barb's beautiful blog post (bbb!) illuminates why yoga was the first step in the journey SHE has taken to get healthy but it isn't necessarily what I need.  I, also, have a need to get healthy via exercise.  But I hate exercise.  Period.  I dislike the sweating, the changing of clothes, the post-exercise showering, the significant amount of time spent exercising instead of doing something I actually enjoy or fulfilling one of my many other responsibilities, the mind-numbing boringness of the repetition required to exercise effectively, the insecurity of being a newbie and looking like I don't know what I'm doing...  And I have never, ever achieved that "runners high" or whatever other dopamine-release that the majority of people report as a great reward of exercise.  Nothing I have ever tried has gotten me past all of that, including playing sports like soccer or football back in high school (or avoiding playing sports back in high school), running, walking, bike riding, yoga, aerobics, step class, zumba, circuit training, exercise machinery, fitness clubs, kick boxing, or tae kwon do.  Everyone tells me I should do this or that or the other thing, and I KNOW I need to exercise in order to be healthy, lose weight, and look the way I want to look.  But none of the above feels right for me.

Except for dancing.  That's the only physical activity that I have ever consistently enjoyed in my whole life.  I often get the sensation, when listening to music or watching dancing, that I was a dancer in another lifetime.  This body doesn't know what to do, but it's somewhere deep inside of me.  I feel the choreography when I listen to music, even though I would never be able to actually do any of what I feel or express it in words or direct someone else to do it.  But it's in there - some sort of movement that goes along with the music I'm hearing.

Well, the voice has been telling me, for years and years and years, to take a dance class.  My husband and I took ballroom dancing 12 years ago.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and I recommend it to any couple looking for a good way to stay connected both emotionally and physically. But that's not what the voice is talking about.  It's saying I need to go take a modern dance class.  Yeah, I looked into it a few years ago.  I found a gazillion beginner dance classes for little girls, or advanced classes, or classes for adults who used to be dancers and haven't in a long time.  I found a couple of classes during the day for women who do not have full-time work responsibilities or who have more daytime flexibility.  But mostly I found zumba or jazzercise or some other exercise class dressed up in the trappings of dance.  And it is absolutely not the same thing and not what the voice is telling me.  I know because I tried them and it didn't satisfy the voice.  I say "well, I tried Zumba and I didn't like it" and it replies, "I know.  Take a dance class."  Just as Barb describes, it doesn't judge.  It's just there, giving me the answer, waiting to be listened to.

I am an atheist, so I do not consider the voice to be divine.  I often call it "the universe" but in reality I believe it is the part of me that has distilled all of my experiences and thoughts and feelings and has come up with the answer to my own questions.  I believe we are all wise past our surface understanding if we would just go inside and listen to ourselves.  I totally agree with Barb that many things in life are so loud that they drown out our own wisdom, like pain or other people's incessant insistence that you should do what they did.  And I take it a step further.  I believe that there are consequences to ignoring our own wisdom, and that those consequences tend to get more and more severe the longer we ignore that voice.  I call this "consequences from the universe" because it's easier to imagine some external source doling out punishment for ignoring what it's trying to tell you.  But, in reality, it's just life.  The longer you go on ignoring what you know to be right the worse and worse things tend to get.  Let's face it - shit happens.  And not every shitty thing that happens is a direct result of our own stubbornness or refusal to listen to our own wisdom.  But way we feel about those shitty things, how we react to those things, and how we integrate the learning back into our own lives are direct consequences of ignoring or listening to the wisdom.  The better we are at listening to ourselves the less devastating the impact will be when shit inevitably happens.

So I will try, once again, to find a beginner modern or lyrical jazz dance class for adults that takes place in the evenings or weekends, doesn't cost a million bucks, and is within a half hour ride of my house here in suburban Long Island, NY.  If anyone knows of any place that I should check out please let me know.  And stay tuned in this place for more blog postings.