Do you remember when you discovered the sensual feel of velvet?  How exotic?  It plunged me into a new place of luxury and grander.  I don’t bake cakes everyday although now that I’ve joined Daring Bakers it seems I’m going to be baking one every month!  When I bake a cake it’s usually for something special so I expect it to be something special and exotic.

I stewed over this for many days and it was only when Lis suggested thinking about it as baking a slice of history that I was able to give myself over to it.  I surrendered and followed directions at least about 98%.  I got a Red Velvet Cake.  And I got raves from my cake testers.

There is a good history of the cake here.  Google Red Velvet Cake recipes and you’ll find in the neighborhood of 590,000!!!   The group couldn’t decide on a recipe, so we individually picked one to bake.  I found 11 different recipes in cookbooks I have on my shelves!  For my Not Red Velvet Cake, I had worked off of a recipe that appeared in the New York Times but is no longer available for free there.  My second attempt, I used the recipe Peabody had circulated in the group with, for me at least, very minor changes.

Red Velvet Cake

adapted from

Mrs Wilkes Boarding House in Savanna, Georgia

via Peabody

2 eggs

1 1/2 c sugar

1 1/2 c canola oil

(can you believe, a healthy fat and not my substitution!!!)

1/2 Ghirardelli White Chocolate baking bar shaved

2 1/2 c cake flour

2 T cocoa powder

1/2 t salt

1 c buttermilk

1 t vanilla

5/8 oz red food coloring

1 t baking soda

1 t balsamic vinegar (substituted for white)

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Cream eggs, sugar and oil.  I don’t think you can over do this creaming process.  I work my Kitchen Aid up to high speed and let it speed about  5 to 6 minutes.  Once you add flour and milk, you want to be much more gentle. 

Instead of sifting flour, I whisk it in the bowl.  Whisk flour together with the salt and cocoa.

Start with buttermilk and end with buttermilk, alternating with the flour mixture, mix into the creamed mixture.

**Peabody’s recipe mixed the baking soda into the dry ingredients and the vinegar in with the creamed eggs & sugar.  Because so many of the recipes I’d found in southern cookbooks  & the NYT mixed the soda and vinegar together and then into the batter as a last step, that is how I did it.  I then folded the soda/vinegar into the batter.  I don’t know that either has any advantage over the other.

The last thing I did to address the bland comments I heard from our group and found in reviews was to add that 1/2 t salt.  I’ve tried bread without salt and it’s got to be one of the weirdest taste sensations around: not tasteless exactly, more like trying to taste in black and white instead of color.

Pour into 3 (8 inch) or 2 (9 inch) round cake pans.  I used 2 pans and my trusty Magi-Cake Strips.   The strips are soaked in water and promote even slow heat in pans, preventing a hump on cakes. 

Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes.  When the layers are spongy, the cake is done.

Frosting, oh yes FROSTING.  Yep, I’m a frosting girl.

Red Velvet Cake Frosting

no it’s not red!  it’s white

1 (8-oz) package cream cheese

1/2 c (8-oz, 1 stick) butter

1 lb. box confectioners sugar

1 c chopped pecans

1 t vanilla

Combine the cream cheese and butter and melt over low heat. 

Add sugar, pecans and vanilla and beat until smooth - well the pecans will not be smooth but everything else will be.  Frost cake.

Simple right.  Well, not exactly.  Yours truly reads that first directive and starts muttering.  I’m not going to dirty up a pan for this. I’ve never cooked a cream cheese frosting in my life and I’ve made plenty of glorious cream cheese frostings.  I’m not going to do this.  After melting the butter in the microwave and continued muttering and Gorn passing through several times muttering “Follow the directions.”  I found myself with cream cheese and butter melting on the stove top.

I was prepared for a mess trying to apply the icing.  Peabody had warned us.  I must have done something wrong because it went on easy as cake! 

Visually this is a very flashy cake.  Taste wise this got raves.  The guys were wild for it.  My friend Ilda said it was better than the one somebody had brought into work.  “It’s really really good.”

I found eager homes for 2/3 ‘s of the cake.

I found the following quote referring to Red Velvet Cake in Wayne Harley Brachman’s RetroDesserts very interesting

“It was believed that a devil’s food cake would have even more sinfully good attributes if it somehow took on a red hue.  The simple solution was to add a solution of red food coloring - often a whole bottle of it - and voila, the emperor’s new clothes.  Go figure.”

Make of it what you will.

We are

Thank You, Thank you !!  Ximea, Thank You, Thank you !!

Ximea who has a blog at lobstersquad is a fantastic illustrator as you can see from this great banner she’s done for us. 

Find it on the left hand side bar of this post and follow the links for all the Red Velvet Cakes baked by the Daring Bakers!