moonstar's revival of the cooking thread reminded me that we need to revive the baking thread too
today i made 2 cakes, and helped make another. i made the 2 cakes for a lady that's a neighbor of my sister's (and got paid; i should do this more often)
1. the chocolate cake from the recipe off the back of those canisters of hershey's unsweetened cocoa; really moist cake because it's made with oil and hot water in the batter (versus butter, which usually results in a firmer cake).
2. a basic vanilla cake (if you google 1-2-3-4 cake; that's your most basic and classic vanilla cake recipe; it's the base for so many cakes) with vanilla butter cream frosting. butter creams are usually much nicer to eat than frostings made with confectioner's sugar. this particular frosting was made by cooking the sugar with the milk first (to make a pseudo pudding), and then beating that mixture into softened butter; it's very rich, but it's not teeth-rotting sweet like some frostings can be.
3. southern red velvet cake; the recipe is easily find-able by searching it on the foodnetwork.com site (it's sara moulton's recipe). you can even (technically) call this a chocolate cake, because it's got one teaspoon of cocoa in it
yes it is bright red, but it's also delicious.