Red Velvet Cake and the Kitchen Slave

I told you about my little kitchen slave, right?  At 11, she’s 5 feet tall, and an eyelash farm.  (So is her father.)  I have to buy a lot of mascara to keep up, but that’s not the point of the story.

She’s been helping me in the kitchen a lot lately.  I’ve taught her to run the stand mixer, and the food processer.  She thinks the neon buttons on the new Cuisinart are cool.

We decided to make Red Velvet Cake with Raspberries and Blueberries, and I thought I was being oh so clever thinking she was going to do all the work.  Truth:  she did everything but handle the red food coloring (a wise move on my part).   Teaching and learning take time.  It goes very slowly when you are standing for three hours.  We started at 2:30 and took the cakes out of the oven at 5:30.  Then I had to clean up the mess in the kitchen. 

Is that red cake batter on the ceiling?

A word of caution about cakes with cream cheese frosting.  Don’t make them during the summer heat wave.  We finally got a break in the weather this year, down to about 85, and I couldn’t wait to turn off the A/C and open some windows.  Big mistake.  We didn’t frost so much as poured it on the cake.