Roll Out the Red Velvet Cake for Our Mother Mary!

5/10/09: Chicken BBQ Pizza from The California Pizza Kitchen and Red Velvet Cake for dessert.

• Sources: Pizza recipe came from recipezaar.com and the cake was from Annemarie's Betty Crocker cookbook. I made the Chicken BBQ Pizza before, so check it out here.

• Defining moments: First ever Red Velvet Cake and first time using a piping bag. You can certainly tell it was the first time--read on!

• What I learned and modifications: Did you know that Red Velvet Cake and Devil's Food Cake are one and the same except that the former has red food coloring added? I didn't know that one!

I chose to bake a cake this Sunday in honor of the month of Mary: May. I was planning on adding fondant roses to the cake but wasn't able to find glycerin in time. I then decided to make the roses out of buttercream frosting but yours truly had one of her clumsy moments and the piping bag came apart at the seams. One big and heavy sigh. I couldn't make the roses this time but I'm looking forward to buying another piping bag and decorating tools to have at least one little rose to come into existence. I requested The Icing on the Cake from the library so should be able to figure out what I need soon.
So any mods this time? Well, I sort of winged it with the pizza recipe. I never did follow it, even for my first attempt. The recipe ingredients sort of sowed the "seed" in my mind and I went on from there.
Here is what I did:

Becky's BBQ Chicken Pizza
Prep: 1 hr. Cooking: 25 min.
Yield: Two 10 x 15" cookie sheets
Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
• 3 boxes of Jiffy Pizza Dough Mix
• 4 cups of bbq sauce (I add some ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and granulated garlic to Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce)
• 1 medium onion
• 1 1/2 c. bell peppers
• 2 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cook the chicken in the dutch oven with 2 cups of water. After they turn light brown take them out and cut them into small cubes, then transfer them back into the pan and wait until they are thoroughly cooked. In the meantime, cut the onion and peppers and prepare the bbq sauce and pizza dough. After the chicken is done move it to a small bowl and toss it with a small portion of the sauce. While the chicken is cooling knead the dough and role it out to the pan size. Spray the pans with cooking spray and move rolled dough to each pan. Pat down and stretch dough up sides of pan. Bake crust for 2 minutes. Take pans out of oven and brush crust with bbq sauce. Top with onions, peppers, chicken, and cheese. Place back in oven and bake for 25 minutes. Cut each pizza into 8 pieces. IMPORTANT NOTE: I must leave two pieces free of onions and peppers for Annemarie. :)

• How it tasted? Can you really complain about this pizza? No, I didn't think so. The cake was good, too, even though it was missing a rose. I believe Mary wouldn't find fault with it so that's good to know. :)

• What about a 2nd time? Yes, indubitably.

Here's a cake for Mary. You can see that I used the star tip with the piping bag for the filling--before it broke!




What's this?! My photographer happened to take a shot of me cooking the chicken! Boy, you're a sneaky one, sis!