Red, White and Blue

Today I am about as patriotic as I can get.  I'm red, white and blue over cupcakes I tried to bake yesterday.  Let me start by saying whoever invented this box of food coloring needs to be hung by his ..... okay, forced to use them every single day.  Look at the top on that yellow vial.  Does it look easy to grab out of a tiny box?  Even if you wet your fingers, you can NOT get a grip on that little bugger, not to mention the fat plastic bottom that sticks to the cardboard like glue.

I suppose I should have just dumped them out on the table.  Instead, I kept working at it until the top came off the blue which was next to the red I was after.  I put it back on but was instantly covered in blue dye.  I kept trying for the red until that top came off, splattering dye everywhere.  I finally opened the bottom of the box to remove the vials, but of course now there is red and blue dye all over me AND the counter.  Heavens to Betsy!!!

I searched high and low in my cabinets and found a large bottle of RED.  I gathered up the little vials and threw them all in the trash.  I spent the next ten minutes trying to get the colors off my hands, to no avail.  Yes, I'm now red, white and blue!!

The reason for all that nonsense was to make red velvet cakes.  It's the one thing I had all the ingredients for ... well, except cream cheese for the frosting!  Just so you know, I made this from scratch.  I even went so far as to sift the flour.  Not like my mothers sifter (which I still have somewhere), the new contraption sent flour wafting on the breeze throughout the kitchen.  It looked like it snowed in my sink.  I figured I would vacuum later.

About midway during the baking process, it dawned on me these were cupcakes.  They require much less baking time than a regular cake.  About half in fact.  I quickly adjusted the timer.  Amazingly, they came out beautiful!!!  Hurray for a Nancy success!!

My REAL reason for baking was to try out this mini bundt pan I'm had in my cupboard for about ten years and never used.  Aren't they magical?  All except for the one.  Naturally, in spite of all the goop I put in the pan, they refused to come out.  I actually had to run a knife around every single nook and cranny and bang them on the counter before they began to release.   YAY!!!! 

Since one broke, with half of it remaining in the pan, I did a quick taste test.  The texture is perfect, the taste, not so much.  Red velvet cake doesn't really have any flavoring in it besides a tad bit of chocolate and a teaspoon of vanilla.  It's all in the frosting ... which I don't have.

Today I'll hit up the little market closest to my house and pick up some cream cheese and powdered sugar.  That should do the trick.

That's when I tried to wash the cute little bundt pan.  I soaked it in hot water for an hour and washed it with a sponge.  Nope ... still really dirty.  I grabbed a toothbrush and tried it again.  Nope ... still dirty.  You're kidding me, right?  How in the world do you get this thing clean??  There's bright red cake residue in every section.

As a last resort, I rubbed every single square inch of the pan with my fingers until I finally got it clean.  No wonder this pan stayed in my cabinet for ten years.  I'm thinking it might be there another ten before it sees the light of day again!!

In the meantime, I'll be scrubbing my hands with pumice stone to get the red and blue color off.  I'm definitely going to remember this next year for Halloween!!