Teeny Tiny Red Velvet Cake

I usually don't like red velvet cake because it tastes like food coloring to me...but i bought gel food coloring, which is more concentrated than liquid food coloring so i figured i can use way less dye than the normal amount of 2 whole bottles of the liquid stuff. for the recipe, i used pinchmysalt's recipe because i liked that the vinegar and baking soda were combined separately and then added to the cake batter, while other recipes just dumped it all into the batter without having the vinegar and baking soda react together. for some reason, i felt like letting them fizz separately before going into the batter was more legit. plus i also wanted to see them bubble up. science is cool!

sift the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and a pinch of salt twice to ensure that there won't be lumps in the cake batter...

meanwhile... cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. this will incorporate alot of air to ensure a sexy moist cake. after it's become light and fluffy, add the egg, vanilla extract and red food coloring. 

start adding the buttermilk and the sifted dry ingredients alternately, starting with the buttermilk and ending with dry ingredients. i made my own buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to 1 cup of milk. oh yeah, fold the wet and dry ingredients into the batter to make sure that you don't work the flour too much. even though i was using cake flour, which has less gluten than AP flour, i didn't want to risk working some gluten into the flour. moist cake = yummy cake!

yay science time! add the vinegar to the baking soda in a separate bowl. when it fizzes, fold it into the cake batter. 

because i used small tart pans to bake these, i preheated my oven to 300F and let it bake for just 15 minutes. i checked for doneness with a chopstick, obviously. 

time to make the frosting! cream together the cool butter and cool cream cheese until it looks like this! then add vanilla extract and then the powder sugar. i would always mess up frosting, until i started adding the powder sugar 1/4 cup at a time and tasting the frosting after each addition so it won't come out too sweet. 

so cute!! and insanely yummy. the cake came out perfectly moist and the frosting did not taste too sweet or too much like cream cheese. perfect!

Ingredient list

for the cake:

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder 

1 teaspoon red gel food coloring

1/4 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar 

1 egg (at room temp.) 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk (at room temp.) 

1/2 teaspoon white vinegar (i used distilled) 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 

for the frosting:

1/4 cup chilled unsalted butter

1 cup powder sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 oz. chilled cream cheese

pinch of salt