The Red Velvet Cake

What is Red Velvet Cake?

What does it taste like?

It's a popular American cake, made with oil or butter (depending on the recipe) and layered with vanilla icing (usually cream cheese icing). It tastes like cake, to be honest. It doesn't have enough cocoa to taste like chocolate or enough of other flavors to taste like anything else. I countered this by adding cinnamon, cardamom, salt and lots of extra vanilla. It calls for vinegar, buttermilk and cocoa. The acid in the vinegar and buttermilk bring out the red pigment in the cocoa, but modern red velvet cakes calls for buttermilk, vinegar, cocoa AND red food coloring. In World War II, U.S. bakers used beets to enhance the color. While I think a tasty cake can be made with beets (see my beet chocolate cake later in this series), I just used the traditional ingredients.



Here's my recipe:

Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by buttering them and placing two parchment rounds in each pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine salt
1 tbs cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbs food coloring
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cocoa powder. In your main mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla. In your mixer, add the wet ingredients to the dry, pulsing a little between additions, and always starting with the dry and ending with the dry. Mix until smooth, but don't overdo it or the cake will come out tough. Mix until it just starts to look right. There will be bubbles. but don't worry.

Divide the cake batter evenly between cake pans. Place the pans in the oven evenly spaced apart. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking, until the cake pulls away from the side of the pans, and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

You can add as much icing as you like! I made 4 cups of cream cheese icing and made two layers.

Cream cheese icing:

3.5 lbs powdered sugar
16 oz cream cheese
3 sticks butter
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs sour cream

cream butter until a little fluffy. Beat in chunks of cream cheese and salt until smooth. Slowly add 3/4 of the sugar (otherwise it will make a mess). Add vanilla and sour cream. add the rest of the sugar and beat at high speed until fluffy. This icing will sit at room temperature for several hours without oozing. It's awesome.