The Original Red Velvet Cake Frosting

I had thought that red velvet cake is always supposed to have cream cheese frosting until I read a food blog that led me to The Pioneer Woman's post about the best frosting she's ever had (see blog post here), which is supposedly the frosting that was originally used for red velvet cakes. I'm having trouble finding reliable evidence that the original red velvet cake recipes had the cooked flour frosting, but just search for "original red velvet cake," and all kinds of blog posts will come up. Most of the ones I've seen show that the cake part should be made of vinegar and the frosting originally was not made of cream cheese (disappointing and surprising but interesting!). See Cookie Madness's post here on the original frosting (check here and here too). Auntie Joanne recently told my mom and me that red velvet cakes used to be made of beets instead of food coloring (see here). Well, I tried the flour-based frosting, and it was really good, but I still prefer cream cheese frosting. It could be the best non-cream cheese frosting though!

 
 The cake:

 

You want the cake recipe? Go here (it was pretty good but a tiny bit dry...and SO red, but that's just my opinion. Yes, I am aware that red velvet cakes are red; I just get grossed out when my food looks too artificial).

You want the frosting recipe (originally found here)? Here ya go:

• 5 Tablespoons Flour
• 1 cup Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 cup Butter
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

(1) In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk & heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens (it should be very thick, thicker than cake mix--more like a brownie mix)
(2) Remove from heat & let it cool to room temperature. (If in a hurry, place the saucepan over ice in the sink for ~10 minutes until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step
(3) Stir in vanilla
(4) While mixture is cooling, cream the butter & sugar together until light & fluffy (you want to get rid of the sugar graininess)
(5) Add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture & beat it like Michael Jackson. If it looks separated keep beating until it all combines & looks like whipped cream
(6) Spread it on a cooled chocolate cake (or whatever)

Maroo - Fresno, CA

Maroo
2075 W. Bullard Ave.
Fresno, CA 93711
Website here.

After having the heavenly bread pudding at Cracked Pepper Bistro last night, we headed over to Maroo for our dinner. Yes--we had dessert first! Anway, we had a couple of sake bombs and shared this bulgolgi dinner (to me bulgolgi is like the Korean version of teriyaki--not that Koreans copied the Japanese; it's just how I see it since I've grown up with teriyaki...kinda like how bierocks are like German hamburgers or German calzones). The bulgolgi was delicious, as was everything else (bean sprouts, cucumber sunomono, gyoza, rice, and the onions under the bulgolgi). They did spell "gyoza" incorrectly though ("gyoja"). Gyoza is a Japanese potsticker. Spelling errors on menus drive me nuts. Anyway, yum! I'd go back. That jalapeno dipping sauce was good too! Speaking of bulgolgi, I think the last time I had it (and the first time I tried bulgolgi) was in a sandwich at Espresso Experience in Berkeley.

TO-DIE-FOR Bread Pudding at Cracked Pepper Bistro - Fresno, CA

Cracked Pepper Bistro
389 E. Shaw Ave., #102
Fresno, CA 93710
Website here.

Michelle S. and I ate here last night (7.6.11), but it wasn't our first time eating this sweet, moist, creamy, indulgent piece of HEAVEN. I'd tried it about a year ago with my family following a meal and then promised myself that I'd go back just to share it alone with someone (a waitress said people often visit just for the bread pudding). So then I ranted and raved about it to Michelle, who went with her cousin to try it, and she fell in love as well. Then we tried going with Paul during the day but found that it's only open during dinner hours, so this post is about last night's visit. I hope I don't raise anyone's hopes up too high, but man this is good. It is sweet (of course), so you might want some black coffee to go with it. Anyway, the bread pudding is not on the menu, but they describe it and the other dessert option(s?) out loud. It's made of cream cheese danishes, dinner rolls, croissants, and real whipped cream (that really makes all the difference!). I'm not sure what's in the sauce, but it tasted kinda like caramel.

 closer:

If you're curious about their dinner food, I had the "Pan Seared Berkshire Pork Chop Sweet potato and sausage hash finished with pomegranate reduction," which was very good, but I honestly can't remember if it was just good or great. To me, that means that it wasn't fantastic. My parents and brother enjoyed their dishes. Here is their menu.

Browning Butter & A Cookie Failure

Lately I've been seeing a lot of recipes involving browned butter: Browned butter muffins, browned butter cookies, etc. I recently tried making browned butter cookies, but they didn't end up tasting very good (at least not to my mom or me), although one friend said they were "amazing." You can try the recipe yourself here. Don't over-mix! I think that was part of my problem. Anyway, here are the pictures from my butter browning process. It's pretty easy! All you do is melt butter and keep heating it until it bubbles and froths and turns brown. Fun!

It really does smell nutty when it turns brown!

Ta-da!!

See? They ended up being so much flatter and darker than they were supposed to be. See Julie's blog for pictures of her cookies. Mine ended up good but not great...and then later after they had been sitting around in a sealed bag, they were just okay.