Red Velvet Cake, my new best friend...lol

Well folks today was busy and lazy at the same time. I was doing quite a bit of baking but took the time to relax with my baby boy and do a pedicure so I am hardly complaining. I have had several of my friends and family ask about my red velvet cake that I have recently began making a lot of during the holiday season. I always assumed everyone loved red velvet cake. It was almost always served during the holiday season and has been one of my favorite cakes since I was a little girl. What I did not know is the history on red velvet and how there are several variations to how this cake is prepared. I will also give a condensed version of the history along with a pretty simple recipe. Please enjoy and let me know what you think. As in parting I always say " Let's Eat"!

2 Layer Red Velvet w/crumble topping

The history of red velvet cake listed is as provided by Gary Allen of Leite's Culinaria website.

Red Velvet Cake History

While no one know exactly when and where Red Velvet Cake originated, a story (and a recipe) began circulating around the United States in the 1920s about a cake that supposedly was served at the restaurant in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Here’s an account of this urban legend as it appeared in Jan Brunvand’s book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker (W.W. Norton, 1989):

Our friend, Dean Blair, got on a bus in San Jose one morning and shortly after, a lady got on the bus and started passing out these 3 x 5 cards with the recipe for “Red Velvet Cake.” She said she had recently been in New York and had dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria and had this cake. After she returned to San Jose, she wrote to the hotel asking for the name of the chef who had originated the cake, and if she could have the recipe.

Subsequently she received the recipe in the mail along with a bill for something like $350 from the chef. She took the matter to her attorney, and he advised her that she would have to pay it because she had not inquired beforehand if there would be a charge for the service, and if so, how much it would be. Consequently, she apparently thought this would be a good way to get even with the chef.

Because of this story, and similar variations, Red Velvet Cake is also known as Waldorf-Astoria Cake, $100 Cake, $200 Cake, etc.

There’s also a scientific myth associated with Red Velvet Cake. It has sometimes been asserted that the cake’s red color comes from a chemical reaction between the baking soda and the chocolate in the recipe. This is the result of a simple misunderstanding of the chemistry involved. While cocoa powder contains anthocyanins (red vegetable pigments) they are only red in the presence of acids –they turn blue-green in the presence of bases. When cocoa is mixed with the baking soda, a base, the combination should turn the cake an unappetizing brownish-gray. It doesn’t, of course, because the anthocyanins are present in very small quantities, and any color shift is masked by the more prominent brown of the chocolate. The red color of the cake comes from a much simpler source: large amounts red food coloring.

The supposed red color resulting from the baking soda/cocoa combination also appears in connection with Devil’s Food Cake. I wonder if Red Velvet Cake was created because Devil’s Food Cake doesn’t look nearly as red as its name would suggest. This is akin to some folks adding green food coloring to Key Lime Pie because it doesn’t appear “limey” enough.

ReferencesBeard, James and Thollander, Earl. James Beard’s American Cookery. New York, Budget Book, 1996.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989.

McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 1997, (rev. 12004).

Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients

3 1/3 cups cake flour

1 1/2 sticks of butter at room temperature

2 1/4 cups of sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

2 ounces of red food coloring (6 tablespoons)

1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Prepare three 9 inch round pans or two 9 x 13 inch square pans by coating the pans with butter and then dusting with flour.

You should line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper but this is not entirely necessary.

Sift together the flour and salt.

Using your standing mixer, set to a medium speed, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla.

Add the eggs one at a time making sure that each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next.

Mix together the cocoa powder and the red food coloring together.

Add the cocoa mixture to the batter.

Reduce the mixers speed to low.

Add half the butter milk. Wait until the buttermilk is completely incorporated.

Add half the flour. Wait until the flour is completely incorporated.

Add the rest of the butter milk. Wait until the buttermilk is completely incorporated.

Add the rest of the flour.

Mix together the baking soda and vinegar.

Mix until well combined.

Pour the batter into the pans.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the pans for 15 minutes or until cool to the touch.

Remove the cakes from the pans and continue to let them cool for at least one hour.

Basic White Frosting Recipe

Ingredients

1 ½ sticks of room temperature butter

2 pounds of confectioners’ sugar

¼ cup of milk (more might be needed)

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Using your stand mixer beat butter until smooth.

Slowly add two cups of the sugar.

Slowly add the milk.

Add the vanilla.

Add the remaining sugar one cup at a time.

Add more milk if the frosting isn’t soft enough to spread easily