Red Velvet Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Week four hundred. The number is round and arbitrary and I note it because the noting is what I do — the librarian's habit of cataloguing, the cook's habit of measuring, the writer's habit of marking the milestones in a life that is measured in weeks and meals and the particular accumulation of days that, when stacked together, become a decade. Week 400 is the end of the eighth year and the beginning of the ninth, and the beginning is the continuation, and the continuation is the life.

The wedding is three weeks away. James and Elise's wedding, in the garden, under the arch that Robert built. I have been planning the rehearsal dinner with the military precision that Mama brought to every holiday: the she-crab soup, the shrimp and grits, the biscuits, the collard greens, the cobbler. The menu is the cookbook. The cookbook is the dinner. And the dinner is the welcome that I give to Elise, who is becoming family, who is joining the chain, who will someday stand at a stove and stir the roux and hear my voice saying "slow" the way I hear Mama's voice saying "slow," the instruction passed from woman to woman, the stirring continuous.

Carrie is coming home for the wedding — from Emory, a four-hour drive, the shortest distance she has ever traveled to come home and the distance that feels, after Fukuoka, like being next door. She will stand with James at the ceremony and she will cook with me at the rehearsal and the standing and the cooking will be the family, and the family will be the wedding.

I made she-crab soup — the four-hundredth week's dish, the thesis dish, the dish I have made more times than any other in this journal and that I will make more times still. The soup is not just food now. It is identity. It is the answer to the question "Who are you?" that I have been answering for four hundred weeks: I am a woman who makes she-crab soup. I am a woman who stands at a stove. I am a woman who cooks.

The she-crab soup is the thesis — it always will be — but a rehearsal dinner needs a closing note, something that lands sweet and certain on a table already heavy with meaning. I chose red velvet because Mama chose red velvet, because the color is declarative the way this week has been declarative, and because Elise, when I asked her quietly what cake she had loved as a child, said red velvet without hesitating. That was enough. The cream cheese frosting is the same one Mama spread with a butter knife, the same one I will show Elise to spread, the chain extending, the stirring continuous, the sweetness passed forward.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 24

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine salt
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tbsp red liquid food coloring
1 tsp white vinegar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract, divided
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Prepare the pan. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 13x18-inch rimmed sheet pan with butter or nonstick spray, then dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess.
Combine dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder until evenly blended.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, red food coloring, white vinegar, and 1 tsp of the vanilla extract until smooth and uniform in color.
Make the batter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula or whisk until just combined and no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared sheet pan and bake for 30–35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Cool completely. Remove the cake from the oven and set it on a wire rack. Allow it to cool fully in the pan before frosting — at least 45 minutes. Frosting a warm cake will cause the cream cheese frosting to slide.
Make the frosting. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed until light and completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing between additions. Add the remaining 1 tsp vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, then beat on medium-high for 1 minute until fluffy.
Frost and serve. Spread the cream cheese frosting evenly over the cooled cake using an offset spatula or butter knife. Slice into 24 squares and serve directly from the pan.

Nutrition (per serving)

Red Velvet Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting — The Sweetness That Completes the Table