Red Velvet Cake

White cream divides layers of red cake. Red velvet cake is a North American cake, and the typical version uses a small amount of cocoa and a tangy dairy ingredient. Its vivid crimson makes a strong impression, but the name “velvet” refers to a fine, soft crumb that feels like the fabric. The flavor of the cake changes with how the coloring is used, the kinds of tangy dairy and fat, and the formulation of the white cream spread over the surface.

Adding flour and buttermilk alternately to the butter and eggs

For a butter-based batter, room-temperature butter is mixed with sugar, and the eggs are added one at a time. Cocoa, coloring, salt, baking soda, vinegar and similar ingredients are combined, and then flour and buttermilk are added alternately. Starting and ending with flour lets ingredients of different consistencies blend in gradually and smoothly. Some recipes use low-fat plain yogurt in place of buttermilk.

Baking soda reacts with the acids in the dairy and vinegar to produce gas, which helps the batter rise. The small amount of cocoa adds a gentle cacao aroma that the red color alone does not reveal. The choice of butter, shortening or vegetable oil also changes the mouthfeel and the order of mixing.

The layers are baked in round pans, left to settle in the pans for a while, then turned out and cooled completely. The two layers can be stacked as they are, or each can be split horizontally to make four layers. When white cream is spread between the layers and over the top, bands of red and white appear in each cut slice. Covering the sides completely or leaving the layers visible also changes how the red cake looks.

Three kinds of white frosting

Ermine frosting is a light topping made by combining butter with a cooked mixture of flour and milk or similar liquids. In one method, sugar and flour are mixed, milk is added, and the mixture is cooked while stirring until it has a pudding-like consistency. After it cools, softened butter is added a little at a time, then vanilla is added and the mixture is whipped. The butter is added after the flour mixture has been cooked, and whipping turns it into a white cream.

One way to make buttercream is to add powdered sugar, a little milk, vanilla and similar ingredients to softened butter and shortening until it is easy to spread. This sweet white layer of fat separates the red layers.

Cream cheese topping, which is widely used today, adds the tang and richness of dairy. Combining cream cheese with mascarpone and then folding in separately whipped cream without deflating it gives a light cream that keeps the flavor of the cheese. The topping does more than make the cake look white: it determines the sweetness and tanginess of the whole cake.

A hotel’s published recipe that uses both beets and food coloring

The recipe that the Waldorf Astoria in New York currently publishes combines vegetable oil, eggs and sugar, then adds flour, melted chocolate, puréed beets and red food coloring. Its combination of ingredients differs from that of a butter batter made with buttermilk.

Three layers are baked, cooled and leveled on top, then stacked with white layers of cheese and cream. Distinct from the combination of cocoa and soured milk, this is a method that adds beet purée and melted chocolate.

A name for a soft crumb and the development of the red cake

In 19th-century America, the name “velvet” was used for a variety of cakes to promise a soft mouthfeel. At the same time, bakers were also making dark chocolate devil’s food cake and reddish-brown mahogany cake. In the early 20th century, these chocolate cakes and the idea of a soft crumb came together, and cakes made with cocoa and tangy dairy became widespread.

The redness of the older cakes was brownish, unlike today’s vivid red. The appearance of that color varied with the type and processing of the cocoa and with the formulation. Recipes (ingredient formulations and methods) that added red coloring to it became widespread, and the contrast in a cut slice became stronger.

Adams, a Texas manufacturer of food colorings and flavorings, distributed a formula for cake made with red coloring on recipe cards that shoppers could take home from the store. In this formula, shortening and sugar are mixed, cocoa and red coloring are made into a paste and added, and flour and buttermilk are added alternately. It is also a cake for which the coloring and a recipe for baking it at home spread together.

The 1976 color additive regulation and a 1989 film appearance

In the United States, the food coloring Red No. 2 was removed from the list of approved colors in 1976. Historian Ai Hisano describes how companies responded by holding back on selling red foods or by switching to other colorings.

The 1989 film “Steel Magnolias” features a red groom’s cake shaped like an armadillo. A Smithsonian Institution article on food culture also mentions the film when discussing the later rise in interest. The red interior also became a memorable sight in a scene celebrating a wedding.

A specialty of a New York hotel and a Canadian department store

Red velvet is associated not only with the American South but also with the food culture of a New York hotel and of Eaton’s department store in Canada. A cookbook that researched Eaton’s restaurants and reworked their recipes for home cooks also presents it as one of the store’s specialties.

African American food culture and the Juneteenth table

In the United States, the cake also became part of African American food culture. Amy Ruth’s, a soul food restaurant in Harlem, began serving it in 1998, and in 2000 Cake Man Raven opened a bakery in Brooklyn that made this cake its signature. A cake baked at home and for banquets also became a specialty that people bought by the slice in the city.

Psyche Williams-Forson, a scholar of African American culture at the University of Maryland, explains that the red on the Juneteenth table is a color that recalls the bloodshed of slavery and the violence that continues to this day. This cake appears on the table alongside red drinks, fruit and other foods. Its association with this celebration came after the cake itself had come into being.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture publishes a recipe for the cake as one of the dishes it presents for Juneteenth. In this finish, the trimmed red cake is made into fine crumbs, combined with pecans and pressed onto the sides. The top is left white, and the sides are decorated with crumbs of red cake.

From cake to “red velvet–flavored” products

It is made not only as a large cake with several stacked layers but also as cupcakes. In the 2010s, the name also began to appear on breakfast menus and packaged snacks. The pancakes that IHOP offered for a limited time in summer 2012 combined a chocolate-flavored red batter with cream cheese icing, powdered sugar and a whipped topping. Although their form differs from the cake, they share the pairing of a red batter with something white, sweet and dairy-based.

Oreo also announced in January 2016 that it would add a red velvet flavor to its permanent lineup in the United States. Here the name refers not only to a single old recipe but also to the flavor of a new product. The taste of the cake comes from the combination of tangy dairy, restrained cacao, a fine-textured crumb and a white topping.

Glossary