My favorite past time is baking. Ask anyone around the office and they will tell you that I usually bring some version of baked good to the office about once a month; but that is no where near the amount I bake for my family and friends. So when Celeste and I were brainstorming about blog ideas and we remembered what Mr. Tony said – “Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning taste great on everything but ice cream.” It wasn’t a far leap to put my love of baking together with our love of Tony’s and start experimenting with the seasoning in cakes. There will be several recipes as we test the seasoning in different kinds of cakes and share them all with you one by one; good, bad, or disgusting.
After a little research and asking for suggestions on the Tony Chachere’s Facebook, we decided the first cake should be chocolate. The recent trends in combining peppers and chocolate were not lost on this chocolate fanatic! I searched through my many recipe books and online sources, but found no cake that I thought would do justice until I went back to old trusty – Red Velvet. I do have to give credit where it is due and this recipe was not my own, but from a co-worker’s mother. Obviously, there need to be changes to turn the cake from “Red Velvet Cake” to “Tony’s Velvet Cake” but the only change in this recipe was to take out the salt and replace it with Tony Chachere’s More Spice Seasoning.
Here is the recipe:
1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 2 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp More Spice Seasoning, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tbs cocoa, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup buttermilk
Cream sugar and shortening, add eggs and beat well. Sift flour, Tony Chachere’s More Spice, soda, powder and cocoa 3 times and add alternately to creamed mixture with buttermilk. Add vanilla and coloring. Bake in 3 pans at 350 for about 25 minutes. Let cool and frost with the icing of your choice (we used butter-cream).
Finished and decorated Tony's Velvet Cake
Now, the cake alone (without the icing) started out sweet and amazing, like you would expect of any Red Velvet Cake, but the surprise came just as you were about to swallow…. there it is, the spicy kick of Tony’s! Me and my husband loved it! So I iced it and brought it to work for testing. Celeste liked it and we decided to make the cake again and decorated it for presentation to you guys.
I brought all of my supplies to the office and started baking in our break room, then assembling, and decorating. We cut the cake and tasted. We were disappointed to not have the same cascade of flavors as before. The best we can figure is that the contrast in icing was too much. Next time I think I would do a 2 layer cake and spread the icing a little thinner, but otherwise it was a decent first attempt at the Tony’s Cake.
I had a lot of fun with this cake and hope to continue the fun with other varieties of sweets and Tony’s. Don’t be afraid to try this at home, have fun with it and let us know what you think. We are anxious to hear your thoughts and suggestions on our first attempt.
Samantha
Sales and Marketing Assistant
