Orange and Blue Velvet Cake

Driving in from Orlando to Auburn, I always enjoy the afternoon Georgia sunsets behind farmhouses, pecan orchards, and gigantic rolled bales of hay.  This past weekend, the sunset was the most beautiful blue and orange that I have ever seen.  I was heading to the Auburn/ LSU game and I believed that it was an omen of things to come.  When I posted this photo, Auburn people began posting pictures of their orange and blue sunsets from all over the country.  We all saw and we all believed.  Auburn rolled over LSU 41-7.

This year, I have been tailgating with a group of FANatics, who are the most dedicated and AUsome Auburn fans that I've ever known.  Most serious tailgaters have a theme of the week and prepare food for that theme and go all out!  In honor of Les Miles (aka the mad hatter) coming to town, we had a Mad Hatter party.  My contribution was an orange and blue velvet cake.  I've been asked by several people for the recipe, so here goes:

Holly's Orange and Blue Velvet Cake:

Ingredients:

CAKE:

1T cocoa

1 T white vinegar

1 C salted butter

2 C sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 C Swan's Down Cake Flour- Sifted

1/2 t salt

1 1/2 t baking soda

1 C buttermilk

1 t vanilla

Gel Food coloring: I used AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste from Hobby Lobby

                               134 Navy and 113 Orange

ICING:

1 stick of salted butter

8 oz cream cheese

1 box confectioner's sugar

1 C nuts- I use walnuts, but some people prefer pecans

1 t vanilla 

If I am doing three layers instead of two, I will make this recipe with another half recipe added to it.

I use a small mixing cup and make a paste out of the vinegar and the cocoa.  You can use a toothpick to mix it or a cocktail fork works equally well.  Set the paste aside.

Cream the 2 sticks (1C) of softened butter with 2 C of sugar  Add 2 eggs and beat until fluffy. Mix in the cocoa/ vinegar paste.  Make sure that you get every bit of the paste.

Sift the cake flour, soda, and salt all together.  Gradually mix the flour mixture into the butter/ sugar/ egg mixture to make a batter.  Add in the buttermilk and vanilla.  

Depending on how many layers you want to do, divide the cake batter mixture into either 2 or 3 equal parts.  I ended up making one layer thicker and splitting it in half so that I had two smaller blue layers and one orange layer.  I wouldn't recommend that headache.  

For the navy, I used about 1/3 of the bottle gel coloring to the get the navy that I wanted...and the batter looked sort of like the cookie monster:

The orange, I didn't photograph, but I used about 1/4 of the gel coloring for a little more than a layer. Just play with it until it looks like you want it to look. 

Make sure that you butter and flour your pans so that the cake doesn't stick.  I use standard 9" round pans.

Bake at 350 until cake springs back and starts to separate from the pans.

Once cooled, frost the layers.  They should look like this... (probably shouldn't have as many air bubbles, but..the color)

And finally, it should look like this:

This cake freezes really well for transport.  You can tell this one was wrapped with plastic wrap and frozen for game day.  I hauled it with dry ice on a 7 hour trip and it did great!

War Eagle!  And happy baking.  Let me know if you make it and how it turns out for you.

Love y'all,

Holly