Food Porn: Red Velvet Cake

by Sarah J. Gim (Subscribe to Sarah J. Gim's posts)
Posted Mar 28th 2007 10:32AM
Filed under: Dessert, Food Porn, Recipes, Baking, America, Retro cookery

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I have a love/hate relationship with Red Velvet Cake. Basically, I love it because for Pete's sake, it's cake, and not only is it cake, but it's usually drowning in layers of cream cheese frosting. However, I just don't get it -- "red velvet" that is -- and why this cake, above all others, seems to get so much attention. What I don't get is what "red velvet" tastes like. It's neither chocolate (though I know there is a bit of cocoa in there) nor vanilla, and it certainly doesn't taste like anything red, like berries.

It must be the novelty of the gorgeously shocking red color, because based on the cake that Desert Candy baked, love is all about the aesthetics. Mercedes used the recipe that was published in the New York Times a few weeks ago, which she reprinted in the post. And though the frosting is made of mascarpone instead of cream cheese, I'm not complaining!

Tags: baking, food porn, FoodPorn, red velvet cake

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-28-2007 @ 3:54PM

Michael Cohen said...

Dude, you are so totally right on the whole Red Velvet thing. Yes, it looks cool and you can't go wrong with cream cheese frosting. But the cake itself has no taste. I know it has a little cocoa powder in it, but I have tasted 5 different Red Velvet cakes and/or cupcakes at the best bakeries and the stuff is just basically tasteless...

3-29-2007 @ 8:16AM

Anna said...

Sounds like you all haven't had any good red velvet cake. What makes red velvet special is it's twangy buttermilk flavor. The mysterious red color and hint of chocolate add to the appeal, but red velvet cake made properly is not tasteless.

4-14-2007 @ 6:34PM

Meghan said...

I don't know where you live, but I've never had a tasteless Red Velvet cake in the south... and I've had it at about every wedding and birthday party. It tastes, hmm.. kind of hard to describe... creamy slightly-lemon-ish with a LOT of chocolate (especially if they really make it from scratch- not with colored cake mix or weak cocoa powder- and with rich buttermilk cream).

I was told when I was younger that when the "red velvet cake" first came along no coloring was needing to turn the cake red. It happened naturally. The type of chocolate and baking soda they had back then would make a chemical reaction that caused the red color. I don't know if that is true though... Velvet probably comes from the fact that the cream has that smooth, soft look to it.

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