Hold on to your napkins, everyone! Stella Parks has just revealed the sordid history of our favorite ultra-red and cream cheese-frosted dessert. Can you handle the truth?
Here's the truth that Parks uncovered: it was never about the red. It was about the velvet.
She says that back in the late 1800's, "Velvet had simply come to denote any cake with an especially fine crumb." It became Red Velvet Cake only because the dessert was made with red (a.k.a. brown) sugar. And, yes, a reaction between the cocoa powder and acids in the recipe gave the cake a bit of a reddish hue.
The value of the "red" over the "velvet" didn't come along until the Great Depression when Adams Extract Company attempted to boost sales by marketing their red food coloring along with a free recipe for Red Velvet Cake. Apparently, we Americans have always been suckers for the shiny and new - and brilliantly dyed. The rest is, of course, history.
Ok, maybe this wasn't a conspiracy. Nor was the truth exactly "sordid." But it is a little...deflating to realize that cooks were never that concerned with the red color of their cakes until food coloring was invented. After all of our various attempts to create an "original" Red Velvet Cake with beets, pomegranate juice, and other naturally red foods, this was never really what mattered.
Never mind, says Parks. The real Red Velvet Cake, "a cocoa cake with a warm, molasses-like sweetness," was much better than what it's come to be. She has created her own version of the original for us to enjoy, updated for our modern palates and made satisfyingly red with her very own secret ingredient.
• Get The Recipe: The Original Red (Wine) Velvet Cake
• Read the Article: The Unknown History of Red Velvet Cake by Stella Parks on Gilt Taste
Related: Recipe Round-Up: Make It a Red Velvet Valentine's!
(Image: Sarah Jane Sanders/Gilt Taste)
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In the same vein, strawberry rhubarb pie is just rhubarb pie made with strawberry rhubarb--i.e. red rhubarb. Green rhubarb used to be more common. Someone got confused by the name and started adding berries.
@ Lanea --
That's a happy accident. I LOVE strawberry-rhubarb pie with actual strawberries!
haha clever. a perfect crumb really is gorgeous. The best way to achieve that is to mix on low speed or by hand. Apart from looking pretty, it means it will be stronger, too!
I know I'm the minority when I say I don't care for red velvet cake. The color freaks me out (so much food coloring!) and, if you close your eyes, it just tastes like mediocre plain cake to me. I'll have to try the recipes here to see if I change my mind ...
i'm allergic to food coloring so i can't have it and don't know what it's like! rebecca_f is making me feel better... maybe i'm not actually missing anything?
My baker - who uses beets to colour her red velvet - said that the cake is a very light cocoa crossed with buttermilk and sour cream. It's not my favourite type of cake: a really buttery Madeira style cake is more my thing. However, red velvet is usually iced with a cream cheese icing and I'm all about the cream cheese.
I with rebecca_f, I just don't understand the appeal of it. I might have to give this recipe a try
Most red velevet cake is gross and oily. I knew the history and the modern day version is just bad...
I make 2 amazing versions of red velvet cake (no other kind of cake seems appropriate for a girl named Tallulah). In both my recipes, it has always been about the crumb. The first version uses natural cocoa and buttermilk, and the second orange rind and is a bit more of a heavier (almost pound-like) cake.
Both recipes though, share a key (THE key) ingredient: White Lily Flour. That is what gives it a delicate and velvety crumb.
Those of you who berate red velvet cakes have never had a properly-made red velvet cake.
Red Velvet: Velvety textured, red tinted yellow cake with a hint of cocoa flavor, frosted with cream cheese frosting.
Having a Red Velvet that is done RIGHT can be a life changing experience, unfortunately, most cakes sold as Red Velvet are simply yellow cake mix with red food coloring, and are absolutely not worth anyone's time.
Making it the right way is just as easy as the wrong way, but finding a recipe for the right way is really difficult.
My guy LOVES red velvet, and his enjoyment of the cake has always had to do with the texture. I've had success in getting a red tint
by using a non-alkalized cocoa (the way the original cakes would have been made). It reacts with the baking soda and creates a burgundy color in the cake. Not RED by any means but reddish...
I've never ever had red velvet cake, which is a little embarrassing because I'm a baker.
But I must say, I'm feeling like I should have one now. :)
I've never been a fan of Red Velvet cake because of all the food coloring - that much of a synthetic thing can't be good for you.
But I did find this fantastic White Velvet cake recipe earlier this year, and it has a place in my files forever.
I'm in the dislike red velvet cake group. The cake part can be quite tasty, as others said, if baked properly- vinegar, buttermilk, cocoa, etc. But (to my understanding of the history of the cake) it was never made with cream cheese frosting. Instead, it was a boiled frosting and cream cheese is another modern turn to it. I loathe cream cheese frostings and this cake just seems to be an excuse to gob pounds of it on a cake.
I never put cream cheese frosting on mine; I use French buttercream. Raspberry French buttercream. Divine...
I've had terrible red velvet cake (made by a southern grandmother no less!) and excellent red velvet cake. If you don't like cream cheese frosting, chances are there's nothing this cake can do for you.
I'm very interested in that German Buttercream she put in the recipe, usually I'm all about SMBC, but that looks really good!
I've been eating Red Velvet Cakes since the late 50s, (the buttermilk recipe with the original cooked frosting containing flour), and I always thought it was over-rated. I could taste the subtle bitterness of the red food coloring, and it was such a disappointment to me since it was a pretty cake.
But lets talk about Devil's Food Cake and I will go on, and on, and on ...
I am in the anti red velvet camp. Even when I made it at the bakery I worked at (with buttermilk and the whatnots) it still tasted like nothing. It seems like it's just a vehicle for cream cheese frosting.
People seem to gush over it though so i'm sure i'll be suckered into making it for someones birthday. I'm going to research the hell out of whatever recipe I use because if I'm going to invest the time and ingredients, it better be good.
Forget everything you know about red velvet cake. Head directly over to smitten kitchen and make Deb's incredible Red Wine Chocolate Cake: http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/09/red-wine-chocolate-cake/
I'm totally up for making red velvet cake as long as it doesn't contain an entire bottle of red food coloring (aka "coal tar dye"). I'm just not comfortable using that much of a dye that's been banned in Europe. Why are we still allowing it's use in the US then??
The secret's out! I learned the roots of red velvet from my fave pastry chef in culinary school. I never saw it the same again! ;)
I have tried red velvet cake in many forms and I can't see what the hoopla is all about. I have a very talented palate and red velvet just doesn't do anything for me. I feel like I just joined the'Ya I don't like red velvet either"club. Who knew there were so many of us out there.
Love red velvet. Haven't had it in years because red food coloring was making me feel uneasy. But I shall try this version
A good recipe is the real issue in most of the instances where people don't like red velvet cake. I do omit or use only a dash of food coloring, as I worry about the amount and have friends with allergies to red dye.
Also I agree from living down south for many years, its NOT a cream cheese frosted thing. Boiled delicately sweet frosting makes it sweet but not cloying.
The crap sold at Walmart with Paula Deen's name on it should be fed to swine, not advertised as true southern red velvet cake.
what is meant by natural cocoa? dutch process or no dutch process? is valhrona cocoa considered natural cocoa?