Green Velvet Cake

I recently made this cake per request for Jaxon's birthday. Each year, we serve bakery cupcakes for birthday party guests (to avoid any potential food allergy reactions), and the birthday boy gets to choose whatever cake he wants for me to make for him to share with the family later that same week.

This also allows us to extend birthday celebrations a little longer, which is fine by me because 1) my boys are truly worth celebrating BIG and 2) more cake! ;-)

This year, I was given very specific instructions to make a "red velvet cake - except make it green." Well, since the only thing that makes a red velvet cake "red" is the food coloring, I figured that wouldn't be too hard to do.

Green Velvet Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 Tbsp cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups oil

1 cup buttermilk

1 Tbsp vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 oz. green food coloring

Cream Cheese frosting (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans. Set aside.
2. Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix together well with a wire whisk. Set aside.
3. Lightly beat eggs in a separate medium bowl with wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended.
4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with electric mixer on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
5. Divide batter evenly into cake pans. Drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
6. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Then, loosen the sides of the cakes from the pans and turn out onto cooling racks for another 10 minutes. 
8. Frost with Cream Cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 stick butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

3 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1. Combine butter, vanilla, and cream cheese. Cream until light and fluffy.
2. Add confectioner's sugar a little at a time, mixing after each addition until combined.
3. Apply to cool cake as per directions above.

Notes:

To make a red velvet cake, my recipe calls for 2 oz. red food coloring (probably because red is such a hard color to achieve and 1 oz. would result in pink).

We made this as a birthday cake, and it would certainly fit the bill for Incredible Hulk or Oscar the Grouch fans BUT keep this cake in mind as an alternative to red velvet for Christmas (think Grinch!) or as a yummy treat for St. Patrick's Day. The possibilities are endless!