Happy Birthday Bella Swan!

When reading (or listening to a audio book) I retreat into a different kind of reality, especially when reading a fantasy book (-series). I usually prefer the book, and audio books, over the movies. Movies just can't keep up to how the scenery and characters look like in my fantasy. And usually in the movies the stories are altered and abbreviated, I'm to geeky to be comfortable with that.
My husband refuses to watch movie adaptions of books I've read with me, because I can't stop my self from announcing every time a detail is just ALL WRONG!

I am a big fan of the twilight saga, the books, not the movies! I don't like how Bella is depicted as such a phlegmatic character almost without any emotions showing in her facial expressions. In the book she is described as a usually lively person who has a lot of emotions and does show them. 

Today is Bellas birthday! And those of you who know the story will know, the last time it was her birthday things went awry. So I thought I'll give it a try and give her another shot at having a bithdaycake.... After all she never got around to try the other one. And I felt bad for Alice, she tried so hard. As it was Alice who got the cake for Bella, it had to be pink and with a lot of roses! After all Alice is a real girly girl and never lets go an opportunity go by to try to turn Bella int one as well.

I asked myself what flavors would be appealing to Bella, since the stories are mostly about vampires there are not many food references, I decided raspberry and chocolate is a taste combination most people like.

The chocolate part is a devils food cake, just use your favorite recipe. For the pink layers I used a simple yellow cake recipe, but substituted part of the milk for raspberry puree. Between the layers is a chocolate ganache and the frosting is a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, again with raspberry puree.

So, I really hope I met Bellas taste and she enjoyed it!

Red Velvet II

So, as those few people who have visited this little blog of mine so far might have noticed I am new to this whole blogging world.

While playing around a little after my last post, I realized that all people who've seen my posts so far are from the US. That is why I decided to write in english from now on.

In my first post I wrote about how I'm trying to get used to living in the US by trying out new foods. I especially am fascinated by red velvet cakes (there's no red velvet in Germany;-)). Since there seem to be so many different styles/recipes and opinions to be found and heard, I started my own trial and selection process.

I am also fascinated by the multitude of cooking shows, after our arrival here I almost watched only the food network. Browsing around on food network homepage I had the idea to have my own 'throw down' and start my RV experiment series with the two recipes featured in the RV-episode from the show.

Last time I made the Bobby Flay version, which my husband and I really liked. I especially liked the frosting, I'm still not sure what it is called, white frosting, cooked frosting? Anyway, it was light and creamy... and this is not what this post is supposed to be about.

Finally yesterday I made the version by Cakeman Raven of the Cakeman Raven Confectionery, NYC. This time I didn't make any of the suggested alterations to the recipe, I thought I'll try to keep it as original as possible. To be honest, I was not completely convinced by this version. The color was not as rich as I would have wished for, also it has very little coco, so the taste doesn't come  really through. I know, I know! RV is not a chocolate cake, but still it should have this distinctive coco note.

For the cream cheese frosting, it was okay. Actually I really liked tasting it while I made it, but somehow with the cake I found it overpowering and to heavy.

 I realize my pictures are not exactly artistic and my cake decorating skills are nowhere comparable to what you can find out there in the blogosphere, but everything you see on this page is of my creation, unless marked otherwise.