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Oct 22, 2023 · With its vibrant color, tender crumb, and the frequent addition of tangy cream cheese frosting, red velvet cake is a dessert beloved by many. However, if you're trying to make it at home, there's one area where many cooks can stumble — the coloring.
Red velvet cake is traditionally a red, crimson, or scarlet-colored [1] layer cake, layered with ermine icing [2] or cream cheese icing. Traditional recipes do not use food coloring, with the red color possibly due to non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa, and possibly due to the usage of brown sugar, formerly called red sugar. [1] [3] [4]
- Overview
- The Origins of Red Velvet Cake
- How Did Red Velvet Cake End Up Red?
- The Evolution of Red Velvet Cake
- Favorite Red Velvet Cakes
The tale of how this uniquely American dessert got its striking hue requires a bit of a history lesson.
You may have heard it said that red velvet cake is just chocolate cake with the addition of red food coloring, but that is actually not the case. The cake's classic red hue actually came as a by-product of the combination of ingredients used to create its signature "velvety" texture. Let's look at the layered history of this iconic cake.
Red velvet cake has a rather lengthy origin story. In fact, it dates all the way back to the Victorian era. Starting in the 1800s, cooks began adding cocoa powder to cake mix to soften the protein in the flour. Before this, cakes had a drier, more crumbly texture. Adding cocoa powder resulted in a lighter, fluffier cake, eventually earning the name "velvet cake."
Meanwhile, another cake that used cocoa powder was on the rise: devil's food cake. This intense chocolate cake was made with egg yolks, resulting in a rich, fudgy cake. According to cookbook author Stella Parks during her appearance on
, velvet cake and devil's food cake crossed in the early 1900s to create the basis for what we now know as red velvet cake.
The recipe rose in popularity during the Depression era, as it used cocoa powder and not chocolate bars, which were more expensive. As the recipe made its way to the American South, buttermilk became a central ingredient. The reaction between the buttermilk, vinegar, and baking soda helped to aid in the leavening process — but it also caused something else to happen.
Cocoa powder contains an antioxidant called anthocyanin, which is pH-sensitive, meaning it reacts to acids and bases. When raw cocoa powder reacts with acidic ingredients such as buttermilk and vinegar, it turns dark red. Although, the resulting cake is more of a ruddy brown color and not the gaudy red color you get from using food coloring.
Today, you're not going to be able to recreate that natural reddish-brown hue with your run-of-the-mill, Dutch-processed cocoa powder. That's because most cocoa powder is now processed with an alkalizing agent in order to neutralize the acidity. In order to achieve the same results today, you'd have to use
Starting in World War II, many baking products were rationed, which led some cooks to use beet juice to make red velvet cake. It not only gave the cake a red hue, but it also made it super moist. You can still find recipes for
Red Velvet Cake with Beets
The true popularization of red velvet cake is largely credited to food coloring manufacturers. Red velvet cake's bright color had a lot of appeal, and recipes eventually started calling for the use of red food coloring. A company out of Texas known as the Adams Extract Company began selling bottled red food coloring with tear-off recipe cards for red velvet cake. And since their aim was to sell more food coloring, the recipe called for a lot of it, taking the cake from its reddish-brown roots to the eye-catching red tint we know today.
Around the same time, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York began selling their famous red velvet cake, dubbed the Waldorf Astoria cake, and the hotel claims to be the birthplace of the cake to this day. At the same time, Eaton's department store in Toronto began selling red velvet cake, crediting Lady Eaton as the creator. But historians generally agree that both of these establishments only capitalized on a cake that was already growing in popularity throughout the country.
Whether you prefer to go back in time and make the cake the old-fashioned way, or you're a fan of the stunning red color you can only really get from food coloring, we have a lot of red velvet cakes to choose from. And don't forget the
12 Ravishing Red Velvet Treats for Valentine's Day
11 Different Types of Cake — and How to Tell Them Apart
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Jun 10, 2016 · What is Red Velvet Cake? Red Velvet Cake is not just a chocolate cake with red food colouring added. This cake is softer than most, “velvet-like”, and the chocolate taste is actually quite mild.
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Jun 18, 2022 · The food coloring is what makes red velvet cake red. If you don’t use it, the cake will have a dark reddish-brown color (but will still taste equally delicious, so feel free to omit if you don’t want to use it).
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Red velvet cake. The bold colour of a red velvet cake is a delight to the eye and, with its rich cream cheese vanilla icing, it’s even more of a joy to eat.
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Jan 25, 2023 · Red velvet cake isn’t just a prettier version of chocolate cake. Yes, there’s cocoa powder in the batter, but the overall flavor profile isn’t chocolatey. If a cake is labeled as “red velvet,” that means it will have a mild cocoa flavor, but will also taste buttery and have vanilla undertones.
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