Archive for December, 2009

When All Else Fails, Bake

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

me and michael at sylvias soul food restaurant

That Thanksgiving Day turkey thing didn’t work out that well.  I hate that pressure.  I like that I know I can do one thing and do it well.  Bake.  My baking never looks all that “mahvelous”.  The cakes I make tend to look a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa and yet, they taste oh so good- if I don’t say so myself.  A very creative friend in the hood, Simone once suggested I start a business of private cake baking because she’s such a fan.  Simone came up with the name of the business (“I baked you a cake”) and totally approved of the fact that my cakes are so imperfect.  She said, she goes to buy baked goods from local bakeries but that none of those cakes, though they look so perfect tasted as amazing as mine.  I was so flattered that for the next few years, I called when I finished a new good cake to offer she and her family a big ass chunk.

One of her families and my favorites is a red velvet cake that I do not dye red.  My husband is not a big fan because; well, because it’s just not his thing.  But also, he’s not a fan because the color is sort of the color of a spice cake.  He calls the color grey.  I keep insisting it’s a light chocolate cake color.  Regardless of how it looks, it’s one of my best recipes.  It comes from Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem

red velvet cake