What is a Red Velvet cake?

[Disney-Kim]

I made a Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake but was wondering what the flavor is. Is it chocolate with red food coloring?

just curious, thanks !!

 

[Stepharoonie!]

It's kind of hard to explain. It's definetly NOT chocolate. It's awesome with cream cheese icing. It's a very rich, thick cake....yummy!

 

[Karel]

I saw the Duncan Hines box in the store and had the same thought. It looks chocolate to me, with chocolate icing. Maybe it has a cherry flavoring?

 

[Papa Deuce]

I don't know what it is but I had one for my birthday this year.

 

[720L]

It's probably the same thing my mother-in-law makes-she calls it "red cake". It is chocolate cake with red food coloring in it and whipped white frosting. VERY good-it seems better than normal chocolate cake for some reason.

 

[luv2nascar]

it is a light chocolate cake w/red dye and cream cheese frosting

 

[phamton]

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 fluid-ounce red food coloring
3 tablespoons baking cocoa powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Other recipes list:
2 squares BAKER'S Unsweetened Baking Chocolate

 

[SeaSpray]

Ever see the movie "Steel Magnolias"?? It's the "bleeding Armadillo cake". LOL

They serve this at Hollywood & Vine at MGM Studios. It's a rich red colored cake, usually with a white creamcheese frosting. I've had it a few times at different places and it definitely is not chocolate cake with red food color, it tasted more like vanilla than anything else.

 

[Geoff_M]

Ironically, Red Velvet Cake is an old urban legend that's become reality. It was a predecessor to the Marshall Field's and Neiman/Marcus cookie recipe legends. You know the one, it's the one were someone like a store's cookies and asked for the recipe. The customer was then given the recipe... and was then billed hundreds of dollars for it. To get revenge, the person then sought to pass the recipe around to as many people as possible. In the case of Red Velvet Cake, the villian was the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel or some other swanky place to stay. The recipe that went along with this piece of "Xerox-lore" was basically a white or yellow cake recipe with a lot of red food coloring thrown in.

See: http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/cookie.asp

Over time the cake recipe has taken on a life of it's own and now exists without the "strike one for the little guy" text legend attached to it. Every now and then an urban legend become real. Another example is McDonald's collecting the pop can pull tops for the Ronald McDonald Houses.

 

[Disney-Kim]

I baked it and the batter tasted like chocolate cake. I am using the vanilla frosting on it. It smells yummy !!

 

[phamton]

. It's a rich red colored cake, usually with a white creamcheese frosting. I've had it a few times at different places and it definitely is not chocolate cake with red food color, it tasted more like vanilla than anything else.

It is not a chocolate, chocolate cake. It just has some cocoa in it for flavoring. If you do a google search, almost every recipe has chocolate in it. Southerners have been making it for years. I even had it as a child in the 1950s.

 

[mickey4ver]

It is like a devils food cake in taste...more so than just chocolate

 

[Karel]

Oh, I remember the chocolate icing now...that was the chocolate torte box I was drooling over next to the Red Velvet Cake box.

Blinded by the double chocolate....

 

[SeaSpray]

It is not a chocolate, chocolate cake. It just has some cocoa in it for flavoring. If you do a google search, almost every recipe has chocolate in it. Southerners have been making it for years. I even had it as a child in the 1950s.

Ok, I sit corrected! It may have chocolate in it, but the red velvet cake that I've had didn't taste like it. I have to say, since you've been having it for so long, you definitely would know what you're talking about

Now I'm in the mood for some red velvet cake....!

 

[Geoff_M]

phamton,

For what it's worth, the "Red Velvet Cake" urban legend has been around since the 1920's: http://www.leitesculinaria.com/food_history/red_velvet.html (As a side note, I've actually been cited in one of Brunvand's books on urban legends! They are a hobby of mine.)

 

[Beauty]

The ones I've had didn't have much of a chocolate taste or a vanilla taste, just a red velvet taste....LOL!

 

[phamton]

phamton,

For what it's worth, the "Red Velvet Cake" urban legend has been around since the 1920's: http://www.leitesculinaria.com/food_history/red_velvet.html (As a side note, I've actually been cited in one of Brunvand's books on urban legends! They are a hobby of mine.)

Cool! I'm an UL fanatic myself but never made it into any of Jan Brunvand's books. I do have all his books though and have been posting on snopes since 1995 (as B Hamilton). PM me with your story. I'd love to hear it.

The ones I've had didn't have much of a chocolate taste or a vanilla taste, just a red velvet taste

And Beauty, what, praytell, does red velvet taste like? I once had a red velvet dress and it didn't taste very good.

Bev

 

[Nancy]

We make it with the cream cheese frosting...yum yum!

 

[tar heel]

Here's another Southerner who has been eating made-from-scratch Red Velvet Cake all my life, and it's definitely chocolate -- just not a real chocolatey one.

Geoff M. -- It's funny that you mentioned the Ronald McDonald House pull-tab thing. I was "proving" to someone that this is a legend and got unexpected information. http://www.rmhc.org/donate/donate_individual/poptab_collection/index.html

 

[phamton]

It's funny that you mentioned the Ronald McDonald House pull-tab thing. I was "proving" to someone that this is a legend and got unexpected information. http://www.rmhc.org/donate/donate_individual/poptab_collection/index.html

Yes, that is one where first it was a legend and then McDonald's decided to do it. http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltabs.asp

The problem with that is you get much more aluminum with the entire can but, oh well. Unfortunately, they can't be turned in for dialysis treatment which was how the legend first started.