I must confess. I LOVE Red Velvet Cake. To be honest, I’m kind of a diva when it comes to my Red Velvet Cake…but this you see, is because I have been spoiled my whole life by the best red velvet cake recipe…ever! Some may beg to differ, but this recipe has been passed on for four generations in my family and out of all red velvet cakes I’ve ever had, this is my absolute favorite. So much so that ever since I can remember, I have requested it for my birthday. And bless my mom’s heart for making me one every year because its not the quickest recipe. But the labor is totally worth it! (Thanks for all those year’s mama, by the way) 🙂
Here I am goofing around with the fun decorations my mom made to go on my birthday cake last year. We make it a double layer cake – this means more icing! See technique on how to create this pretty double layer cake below.
My birthday is on Christmas so the red is always a festive color to go along with the season.
We also make it on Thanksgiving because my sister’s birthday is around that time and also because my great Grannie Griffin (pictured here – she lived to be 97) also loved it and this is her recipe.
Sometimes my mom makes me a small cake and cupcakes with the left over batter. All of these pictures make me want to go make the recipe myself! Ugh, must resist…haha
Red Velvet Cake
By Chelsea Nord – Old Family Recipe
Cake Ingredients:
½ cup of Crisco 1 ½ cup Sugar
2 Eggs ½ oz. Red Food Coloring
1 tsp. Vanilla 2 Tbsp Cocoa
1 cup Buttermilk 1 tsp Baking Soda
1 Tbsp Vinegar 1 tsp. Salt
2 ½ cup Flour
Cake Directions:
Cream Crisco and sugar. Add eggs, food coloring, and vanilla. Sift flour and cocoa into a separate bowl.. Add to creamed mixture – alternating with buttermilk. Then, in a separate small bowl, mix vinegar, baking soda, and salt – and carefully add to the cake mixture. Don’t stir after blending. Bake at 350 for 40 mins. (I usually divide into 2 round pans – for this bake for 20-25 mins.)
NOTE: If you want to make this into a double layer cake, spray two 9 inch cake pans with non-stick spray and then cut out circles of wax paper to line the bottom of each pan. This makes the process of removing them from the pan much easier and your cake won’t fall apart.
Icing Ingredients:
1 cup Milk ¼ cup Flour
1 cup Crisco 1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Sugar
Icing Directions:
Cook milk and flour until thick. (Heat slowly and stir constantly to make sure not to scald your milk. ) Then let cool. (**See note below**) While milk/flour mixture is cooling, cream together sugar, Crisco, and vanilla in mixer. Once milk/flour mixture is cool, add it to Crisco/sugar mixture. Beat until light and fluffy.
As mentioned, we make this a double layer cake so after cakes are cool, run a knife around the edge of the cake pan to loosen it, then use an additional sheet of wax paper and flip the cake upside down onto it, gently pull off the cake pan and wax paper, and use both hands, one on top and bottom of the cake, to flip it back right side up. Make sense?
To ice the cake, we put a layer of icing in between the two layers, then ice all around the outside and top of the cake to finish. My sister is the best at this technique!
**Notes**
I usually place plastic wrap on the surface of the cooked mixture while it cools. This keeps a tough skin from forming and helps your icing be smooth. This part may be tricky, please ask me if you are confused!
You can also substitute butter for one half of the Crisco in the icing if you want to, that’s how my great grandma used to make it! But we like it without butter because it’s a little lighter and fluffier. Up to you though!
Here are some printable recipe cards if you would like to save this recipe for your collection!
Is red velvet cake a tradition in any of your families? I’d love to hear about it!
Also, if you try this recipe, let me know how it turns out! I can also help with any questions that might come up! ENJOY!
I’m sorry about not being able to blog much lately, but I still want to share good information with you! I found this blog from fellow ag blogger Marie of OregonGreen about Farming in the Winter. She makes a good point that most people don’t know about all that goes on in the winter on farms all across America. It’s a lot busier than you think. Check out her blog to learn more about farming in the winter!
– BoilermakerAg
I stopped by a local restaurant the other night to pickup dinner. While I was waiting the manager asked “Are you farming this winter?” I responded, “Yes of course.” Manager, “What is there to do this time of year?”
It may be a slower time of year but there is ALWAYS something to do, contrary to popular belief.
Maintenance & Projects
Each tractor, swather, combine, semi-truck, sprayer and fertilizer buggy is gone through in detail. Changing oil, replacing belts, repairing temporary fixes from harvest and any other thing that may arise. We do this each winter to make sure our equipment is taken care of. Things break on the farm but poor maintenance shouldn’t be the reason.
This year we have a big project in the shop. Our three-wheeled fertilizer spreader/buggy is getting tracks! Why? Because we get stuck. Working on wet ground during spring fertilizing makes getting…
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Hey Everyone! Long time no blog- sorry about that- but i wanted to let everyone know that I’m still here so early this morning I recorded a little message to give you a little update on things.
Early Mornings At BoilermakerAg
Happy Tuesday Everyone! Hope to be back blogging soon!
St. Nick’s Day is a tradition that my family has celebrated as far as I can remember. If you aren’t familiar with this special day, the tradition of St Nick’s Day began in Europe and is celebrated mainly by the Catholic and Episcopalian Church to remember St. Nikolkaos of Myra who was a bishop that helped others by placing a coin in a needy person’s shoe or boot when they didn’t know.
Now, St. Nick’s Day is celebrated on December 6th and the tradition is for children to put their shoe outside their bedroom door and a special gift or surprise will be there in the morning for the good children, and the bad children received a lump of coal. This is also how the tradition of the Christmas stocking began. Instead of using the shoe or boot, we use a Christmas stocking.
Picture courtesy of Long Island Press http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/12/06/st-nicholas-day-today-is-st-nicholas-day/
Usually, my parents sent us something every year but this for St. Nick’s Day I sent a present to my family. Since we we’re able to be together today, I sent them this lovely little E-card. 🙂 They loved it so much that I decided to share it with you!
So please enjoy this little gem 🙂
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE NORD’S!
As I sit here with all of this warm weather, (SERIOUSLY? 70 degrees in DECEMBER?) I have decided that it would be a perfect evening to enjoy a glass of wine outside and embrace the few hours of daylight we have left. And to add to that, my wine of choice for the night would be the new Hoosier Red I got at the Mystique Winery and Vineyard grand opening event last month!
Never heard of them? WELL…. Let me telllllll you, they are awesome!
Mystique Winery is a new vineyard, winery, and tasting room that recently opened in my small hometown of Lynnville, IN. Never heard of it? (Trust me, it exists.)
How cool right?! I was extremely excited to learn that we now had a winery in my hometown!
Mystique Winery is a family venture that started as a dream back in 2008 by the Clutter family with the first planting of vines in 2009 consisting of Niagra, Steuben, Vignoles, and Chambourcin grapes.
(DidYouKnow: It takes 3 years to get a crop off of a vine. Talk about needing to have patience!)
It has been a long journey for the Clutters, but through hard work and dedication, Mystique Winery & Vineyard has finally become a reality.
Patti and Steve’s children, Seth (L) and Zeb (R) and their wives Heather and Jennifer are all involved with the winery and were busy bees the day of their grand opening.
A couple facts about Mystique Winery:
Their Grand Opening was on November 17, 2012 and it was a HUGE success! Owner Patti Clutter said, “It was an awesome day and we were so in awe of the support from Warrick County, family and friends. We had over 25 worker bees that worked their tails off all day and the parking attendants said we had over 1200 people and possibly a lot more!”
They had activities all day starting at 11a.m. and were busy even past dark! It was a great time and I definitely want to back! Due to other obligations that day, I didn’t make it until around 4p.m. but it was still a blast! I did miss the Honey Vines who they had perform, but I heard they were AWESOME! I ended up purchasing their Christmas CD so I still got a little taste of their music.
I tried several of their wines and they even had wine slushies! (To. Die. For!) Here were a few of my favorite wines:
If you like dry wine, the Bacchus was good but my favorite of the day was the Hoosier Red! It is a signature wine of the Hoosier Wine Trail and will be good with just about anything.
By the end of the evening, my family stopped by too so it ended up being a fun family outing!
I want to encourage EVERYONE to stop by if you are in southern Indiana and pay them a visit! Also, make sure to check them out on their website, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!
Congrats and hope you enjoyed this cake during your celebration!
I want to send out a personal congratulation to Mystique Winery and Vineyards and the whole Clutter family for a GREAT JOB WELL DONE on opening their Winery!
Next time, I definitely have to get one of their T-shirts!
“Peace. Love. Wine. Exit 39”
*Exit 39 is the Lynnville exit for all you out-of-towners 😉
My little hometown of Lynnville, IN is a thriving metropolis one stoplight town, like many small towns in America, that I love dearly. It has the basics – gas station, grocery store, bank, hair salons, high school, a couple restaurants and now… a winery. WAIT, what? A WINERY? IN LYNNVILLE?
(If you were from that area, you would understand my surprise.) But regardless, how awesome!
The Clutter family from Lynnville started the journey of building their vineyard and winery in 2008 with nine rows of grapevines. And now, with a lot of hard work and determination behind them, they are proud to present the grand opening of Mystique Winery and Vineyard!
This Saturday – TOMORROW – they are having their Grand Opening Event and everyone should definitely stop by!
Here’s the 411:
Mystique Winery and Vineyard Grand Opening Event
Saturday Nov. 17, 2012
13000 Gore Rd. Lynnville, IN 47619
11am – 6pm
(Or as Patti says, until the last person leaves) – gotta love that small town hospitality 🙂
There will be wine tasting, (wait, duh Chels, of course there will be wine tasting, I mean, it is a winery), tours, and a whole lot more! The Honey Vines (Andrea Wirth & Melanie Bosza) will also be playing from 12-4p.m. and from what I’ve heard, they’re pretty awesome.
I’ll have a full blog about Mystique Winery coming soon, but make sure to stop by their grand opening event tomorrow! You won’t be disappointed!
Hope to see you there!
Rise and shine everyone! It’s super early but I’m on my way down to NATIONAL FFA Convention today in downtown Indy. If you don’t know what this is, it’s a BIG deal. Around 50,000 FFA students will be In Indy for the convention and it will be a sea of blue jackets!
Do you know why they wear those jackets? The link below is from a post I wrote about National FFA week last year, check it out to learn all about FFA and those blue jackets!
Break out the Blue Jackets-It’s National FFA Week!
Have a great National FFA Convention everyone!
Hey Indy Foodies!
If you haven’t been keeping up with my Global Eats Indy posts, here’s the deal. A group of my friends and I travel to a new restaurant each month to try a new type of cuisine in Indianapolis and then I kindly report back here on my blog to let you know how it was! Any other ethic foodies out there? Check out our Italian and Turkish adventures if you missed them.
On our third excursion we traveled to Tata Cuban Cafe in downtown Indianapolis. It is a cute little cafe located on Market St., and its one of those hidden gems that might be easy to miss, but SOOO worth the journey to find it.
Sorry for the overly bright sign… but isn’t this a cute storefront?
I was excited for this trip because I first discovered my love for Cuban food when I was in Disney World at Bongos Cuban Cafe. (Side note – MAKE this a stop on your next Disney Trip. Great atmosphere and awesome food!) Ok, back to Indy…
A few ground rules about Tata Cuban Cafe:
1. It is tiny. They only seat about 40ish? Maybe not even that many. But it kind of adds to the atmosphere, making it feel like a family restaurant in a small town.
2. They do not serve alcohol. But DON’T let this be a deal breaker for you. We typically give reviews on the culture’s traditional beverages, but the main thing is the food. There are plenty of establishments nearby to get refreshments afterwards if you so choose.
3. Make sure to look at the walls! They have a lot of cool pictures of people who have eaten there and festive decorations.
Anyone look familiar?
4. Every single thing on the MENU is good! The entrees are listed in Spanish, but even if you don’t habla Espanol, you can’t go wrong! Be adventurous!
We all had a hard time picking what we wanted but here were a few of our favorites:
Courtney had the El Guaso Cuban Sandwich – Cuban sandwich made with roasted pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, and hot pressed on Cuban bread. This is a good dish for someone who isn’t that familiar with Cuban food. It’s a classic!
Yum! Who doesn’t love a good hot pressed sandwich?
I had the Ropa Vieja Habanera – Shredded beef marinated with citrus juices,mojo criollo, mixed with grilled onions and peppers. Served with white rice and sweet plantains.
I thought it was neat how each component of the meal came in small portions. Great presentation!
Everything was soooooooo good! Did I mention that it was good? Well if I didn’t, it was good!
Not only is the food to die for, the price is good too! Their whole menu ranges from $5.00 – $19.99. Thats a deal if you ask me.
Overall we had a great time at Tata Cuban Cafe! It was nice to catch up with some great friends, meet some new ones, and enjoy a new type of cuisine. Oh and a fun little treat, we were the biggest group in there so the owner, Alfredo Gonzalez, came out to chat with us and even took our group picture to add to the Tata Facebook page!
Great group of Global Eats Indy girls!
Have any of you ever been to Tata?
Check out this video from their website to learn more about them!
Alfredo is a very fun guy! He really takes traditional Cuban elements and incorporates them into every aspect of the Cafe. I will definitely be going back there sometime soon!
I’m still full just thinking about all the great food we ate at Tata’s, but there’s no rest for the weary! Next up – Vietnamese food!
Anyone ever been to Long Thahn Restaurant? I’d love to hear any tips on what to order!
Until then, it’s time to call it a night for this #GlobalEatsIndy gal. TA TA! (Late night joke if no one caught that) 🙂
I haven’t written an Ag blog in a while but two separate things have come out in the news recently that I just can’t avoid addressing. I see several things every day about agriculture, especially things on social media. And honestly- about 85% of it is incorrect. I’ve figured out why it happens and two specific examples come to mind.
An article came out saying that Dunkin Donuts has decided to start using cage free eggs and gestation crate free pork. Ok, that’s their decision. But the part that frustrates me as an advocate for the agricultural industry is that consumers are so misinformed and the people who publish these stories go to sources that aren’t fact based.
For instance – the source for the Dunkin donuts article was none other than the director of corporate policy of HSUS (If you aren’t familiar with them, HSUS stands for The Humane Society of the United States – an extremist animal rights organization… Not to be confused with your local humane society.) They have an agenda and hire employees to push those agendas and publicize it everywhere.
The Associated Press wrote this article and I’m pretty disappointed in them as a fellow journalist for having such a slanted story. They didn’t even try to talk to any university ag scientists or farmers about the topic, they just put the “tug at the heartstrings” opinion in the spotlight.
This is where the agriculture industry (me included – that’s why I’m writing this post) needs to work harder to get the scientific information out to the public so that when someone (HSUS) explains gestation cratesas breeding crates where the pigs can’t move for four years (not true), the public will be educated with the facts and knowledge to know the difference.
NOTE: Gestation crates are individual housing for sows during the time of pregnancy which are used so that individual sows can be fed relative to their individual needs and to reduce the impact of aggressive behaviors seen in group housing. One important fact that is left out is that the pigs are moved to farrowing crates once they give birth to better care for their litter and reduce the risk of the moms accidentally stepping on the piglets. They don’t stay in gestation crates their entire lives.
Piglets in farrowing crates have more room and are protected from various elements.
Second example: Another article was published about a man who was eaten by his hogs. Right away people are freaked out, but there are questions we need to ask: what breed of hog were they? Were they castrated or boars? Did the man fall and start bleeding? People don’t think to ask these questions but they’re important. These are some of the reasons we castrate pigs and dock their tails. They live in social groups which creates dominance (just like in our society) so the more dominant they are, the more aggressive they become. The reason we dock their tails is because if they get in a fight, the aggressive pig will bite the other pig’s tail off and cause injury.
The news makes this out to be that all pigs are dangerous and that “no one is safe around them” kind of story. Again, not true. The questions above need to be answered and there have to be other explanations than his pigs just “attacked” him. They don’t do that for fun.
Farmers and veterinarians know how to properly care for their animals and practices put in place such as tail docking, castrating, and teeth clipping are there to protect the pigs and the caretakers. (Think about this as declawing your cat so they can’t scratch you or the fellow dog.)
One thing I think those types of organizations get right (when it comes to publicizing their information) is their Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the process of using good key words and search words when publishing your information. Important parts of this include good, descriptive titles, tags (especially for blogs) and getting it out on social media sites to spread awareness and raise viewing numbers for that information. To learn more about how to improve your SEO, click here.
Consumer Challenge: go out at learn something new today about some part of agriculture! Just make sure it’s from a reliable source like universities, or farmers!
Agvocate Bloggers – keep posting your factual, educational information and work on your blog’s SEO to help bring it to the front of the search page.
Universities and Veterinarians- when you publish educational agricultural information put it on Google and make it easily accessible to the public! You can’t admit that the first place you go to look something up isn’t google? Help others learn the things we’ve been trying to tell them!
Also, share it on social media! This is the fastest way to get your information to the public!
Have any of you taken steps to increase your SEO? I’d love for you to share them!
Here are some links:
https://ag.purdue.edu/Pages/default.aspx
Photo courtesy of Purdue University.
I am so excited to share this post! Last week, I had the fun opportunity to attend an event at Saks Fifth Avenue in Indy for Fashion’s Night Out Indy presented by Pattern Indy. Thanks to my #TwitterGal Leslie Bailey, I was invited along with other fashion bloggers to attend the Saks Fashion Show and hangout in the Bloggers Lounge!
We got to get a behind the scenes look at the newest looks for fall, meet the models and took home an awesome swag bag!
Doesn’t all this look so fun! (I’ll give my reviews on those products in a future post!)
While in the bloggers lounge, I met some really fun new friends! The ladies from ScarvesDotNet were there and they were so great! They work together bringing you all things fashion and sell super cute scarves for way cheap! For more info on Fashion’s Night Out and how it got started, check out my new blogger pals’ blog for the Fashion 411!
Sarah H., Sarah T., Julie S., Molly B. and Me!
Next up was the show! Here are some of the great looks we saw!
Some of the popular things from this fall’s line at Saks are: gloves, tweed, leather jackets, patterned leggings, velvet, hats, fur (or faux fur), and great handbags!
It was a great mix of “era” type elements paired with modern pieces such as this great ensemble!
Molly said this was “So Gatsby!” and I think she was totally right!
From what you saw, what was your favorite piece or outfit?
The show was over pretty quickly but the fun didn’t stop there. The ScarvesDotNet gals and I went down to Nordstroms and they had this fun “Fabulous or Faux Pas” interactive contest and we held up a sign to share our vote! Most of them were fabulous, but there mightttttt have been a faux pas or two in there too. Sorry!
Overall, we had a GREAT time! I wish I lived closer to downtown so I could have checked out the other FNOIndy activities. This will definitely be on the list for next year!
Thanks Leslie for a great time!!
Well, I am all fashioned out for the night, but stay on the lookout for my FNOIndy SwagBag Review post coming up here soon. I can’t wait to try all my free samples!
And until next time, I will leave you with this classic SATC line from Carrie Bradshaw – “I like my money right where I can see it… hanging in my closet.”
I kind of like her line of thinking! 🙂
Oh and don’t you think I didn’t go and have my turn on the runway before we left! 🙂 #InnerModelAtHeart
boilermakerag 
