Cooking dangerously

Red Velvet cake is *very* red......making it turned my fingers red.
Plus it had the oddest icing I've ever had - which was a butter cream icing with the addition of some flour cooked in milk and then left to cool before being stirred into the butter cream. Tasted fine but had a slightly gelatinous texture and was shiny and not entirely smooth. Odd, not unpleasant, just odd.
I do like to live dangerously when having people round for dinner - I'm not one for cooking old favourites - it's new recipes down the line. Hence the Red Velvet plus improvised duck. Which fortunately turned out well.....I think I like to stress myself out!! ;)
Still, now we head into the season of Christmas food - not so much trial and error there. (Although I am contemplating whether I can make some version of mincemeat with dried blueberries and cranberries - my dad can't have raisins/currants/sultanas because of his kidneys. Technically he probably shouldn't have any dried fruit at all - high potassium levels - but I was hoping that since fresh blueberries and cranberries are ok we might get away with it......shall continue to ponder.)