A red velvet cake is a popular cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color. It is usually prepared as a layer cake topped with a creamy vanilla icing or most popularly, cream cheese icing. The reddish-brown color of the cake was originally from a reaction of the cocoa powder with an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk; however, red food coloring is often added.
Common ingredients include buttermilk, butter, flour, cocoa, and beetroot or red food coloring. The amount of cocoa used varies in different recipes. Cream cheese frosting is most commonly paired with the cake, as well as the traditional buttercream.[1]
History
James Beard's 1972 reference American Cookery[2] describes three red velvet cakes varying in the amounts of shortening and butter. All use red food coloring, but the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa. Before more alkaline "Dutch Processed" cocoa was widely available, the red color would have been more pronounced. This natural tinting may have been the source for the name "Red Velvet" as well as "Devil's Food" and similar names for chocolate cakes.[3][1] While foods were rationed during World War II, bakers used boiled beets to enhance the color of their cakes. Boiled grated beets or beet baby food are found in some red velvet cake recipes, where they also serve to retain moisture.
In Canada the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton's department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an exclusive Eaton's recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake to be the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton.[4]
A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias in which the groom's cake (a southern tradition) is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo.[1] In recent years, red velvet cake has become increasingly popular and can usually be found in most cupcake bakeries.
References
- ^ a b c Florence Fabricant (January 14, 2007). "So Naughty, So Nice". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/dining/14velv.html?_r=1.
- ^ Beard, James (1972). James Beard's American Cookery. Boston: Little, Brown.
- ^ Scott, Suzanne (June 7, 2003). "It's All Mixed Up! The History and True Facts About Baking Devil's Food Cake". New Jersey Baker's Board of Trade. Archived from the original on 2004-08-05. http://web.archive.org/web/20040805042002/http://www.njbbt.org/ripoff1161.htm. Retrieved 2004-10-10.
- ^ Anderson, Carol; Katharine Mallinson (2004). Lunch with Lady Eaton: Inside the Dining Rooms of a Nation. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 1-55022-650-9.
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