Blue Velvet Cake

BLUE!! Not red, but BLUE!  I've tried "purple" velvet (following the exact same red velvet recipe but purple food coloring - eh, not so great, looked black, but not an appetizing looking black.  LOL.  But that, my friends, is a different story).  I knew the red velvet recipe was going to be one of the recipes I used, so why not make the rest of my flag cake a velvet cake.  My next task was to find a blue velvet cake recipe, so off to Pinterest I went (surprise, surprise!).  This was going to be a first time for me, but hey what better way to test a recipe than with my family (best taste testers and so very honest!).

After searching for all of 5 minutes (I know, I like to do better research, but I was at a time crunch.  I was looking for one that resembled the already amazing red velvet recipe, this was the closest one - I thought), I found this dandy little recipe here.

Here is my experience with the recipe.  Again, I didn't taste my final product, but my family did and they loved it.  However, I will say this, out of the three cake flavors that I made that day, the Blue Velvet did appear to be the most "dry" one.

This is how the cake looks at the end (these were the leftover parts - I used to make a second cake :) )

First, you need to cream together the Crisco (shortening), sugar and eggs.

• 1/2 cup of Crisco
• 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
• 2 eggs

It will look a little grainy from the sugar - NO WORRIES :)

Second, make a "paste like mix" with the cocoa powder and blue gel paste (and the two-three drops of violet paste).  

This actually proved to be a little difficult.  I actually added a few drops of buttermilk to loosen it up some.

• 1 ounce of Royal Blue gel paste coloring
• 2-3 drops of Violet Blue gel paste coloring
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

This was very thick and dark!

By the way, this is the food coloring I used (Wilton) and this is the size of the one ounce jars.  I had to look this up because I couldn't find the measurement on the jars.  I like to use Wilton as well. 

Add this "paste" to your Crisco mix.

Still looks grainy.

You will then add the salt, flour with the buttermilk and vanilla.

• 1 scant tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup of buttermilk

I interpreted this as - add the salt, flour, buttermilk, and vanilla and mix.

Lastly, alternate in adding baking soda and vinegar (no, you're not making a volcano - lol) into your batter.  Just blend I folded, do not beat!

• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tbsp of vinegar

The final batter!

Bake at 350 for 25 - 30 minutes.  I baked mine in 8 inch pans.

The finished "bread" is the first picture, so you can see what it looks like on the inside.  Again, this was used for my "flag" fourth of July cake.

Be sure to check out the other velvet recipes (Red and White)

Enjoy and comment below with you experience with this cake :)