The Dolly Parton of Cakes

                                                     Photo: New York Times

"It's the Dolly Parton of cakes: a little bit tacky, but you love her," says Angie Mosier, a board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford via a fun piece in the New York Times from a few years back.  Love that.

Tonight I am making a red velvet cake for a birthay party using the recipe my grandmother passed on to me at a wedding shower a couple of years ago.  This is the grandmother who doesn't do much baking or cooking, so her annotated version of the recipe has a circle around an original smudge of batter that came through on the photocopy and the note "Proof I really did make this!"

                                       Photo: SpeedM on Flickr

I like this idea of the raspberries around edge.  I hear tapping the cake pans to get the air bubbles out and only baking them at 325F helps deliver even layers.  I am not a regular baker of cakes either, so wish me luck!