Not-So-Red Velvet Cake

For Valentines this year I wanted to make a cute dessert, the first thing that came to mind of course for this overly red & pink colored holiday was red velvet cake! Most of the recipes I found however called for a WHOLE bottle of red food coloring, YUCK!  Can that really be good for you?  Being Valentines I thought I would spoil little man too and let him dig in on the yummyness.  I really try to give Wes only foods with natural ingredients, being that his body is so tiny and perfect, I don't want to screw it up yet! HA! So, I started searching for alternatives.  I found that you could use beet juice to dye the cake as well... but I HATE beets and the thought of beet juice in a sweet cake made me cringe.  I got to thinking of other "reds" and thought, "hmm... when I pick raspberries, my fingers are always stained red for like a day... maybe raspberry juice will work the same!" (Not to mention chocolate raspberry cake is my fav!) So I will tell you it didn't work - BUT the outcome taste was sooo good I really couldn't care less it didn't "look" good!  Here's my recipe (tweaked a little to my liking from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups sifted flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 bag frozen raspberries
• 1/2 - 1 bag frozen mixed berries (I just happened to have this left over in my freezer, you can use all raspberries if you choose)
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• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 (16 ounce) box confectioners' sugar

For the cake:

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour 2 cake pans (or glass casserole pan, which is what I used!  In this case, cook half of the batter at a time to create 2 layers).  Put your raspberries in a medium sized saucepan and start simmering on med-low heat.

Sift the flour into medium bowl, stir in cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  

Check our raspberries.  If they have melted and start to "smoosh" easily, pour them into a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and gently press through with a fork.  Let set to drain all raspberry juices.

In a large bowl using a stand or hand mixer, cream together softened butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs 1 at a time until incorporated.  Mix in yogurt, milk and vanilla.  

Give another gentle press to your raspberries, taking your spoon/fork and scrap the bottom of strainer.  Poor the juice into the cake mix and put the berries left in the strainer back into saucepan.

Stir in raspberry juice into cake mix.  At this point it will look like it might actually turn out red! yay! but it doesn't... don't worry, it still tastes sooo yummy!

Slowly add your flour mixture and gently mix together until all ingredients are well incorporated.  Poor in prepared pan(s) (if only using 1 pan, only pour in half of the batter) and bake 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean!

Take the rest of your raspberries, add the 1/2 of bag of mixed berries (or another bag of raspberries, whatever you prefer!  For a larger cake you may want to use a whole nother bag of berries).  Simmer until juice is nice and thick, strain again and reserve juice for dying your frosting.  Put berries back in pan with 3 "big" spoonfulls of sugar and "smoosh" up until all big chunks are dissolved  (if you used mixed berries, you may want to dig out any large chunks like blueberries). and simmer for about 10 minutes.  

When cake is done, let cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then turn over onto cooling rack.  Cool completely.  If only 1 pan used, poor the rest of the cake batter in the pan and cook the remaining batter.  

While cake is cooking prepare your frosting.  Mix together softened butter and softened cream cheese until light and fluffy.  Stir in vanilla and powdered sugar, little bit at a time until nice and thick. set aside about 1/2 cup to color for decorations.  Mix in some of the remaining raspberry juice until your desired color is reached.  

When cake is cooled, place one layer on your serving platter or cake stand, spread cooled raspberry and sugar mixture over the top, add the second layer and frost! Decorate as desired.  Soooo yummy!