Grandma's Red Velvet Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What was the original red velvet cake made of? ›

Around the 1900's cake recipes with cocoa as the main ingredient began to surface. People were finding recipes for cocoa velvet cakes, red cocoa cakes and other "cocoa" types of cakes.

The trick to using our Red Velvet Color when baking cakes and cupcakes is to lower the pH. Some ways to do this is by substituting baking powder in place of baking soda, using a natural non-alkalized cocoa powder, adding more white vinegar or buttermilk to your red velvet recipe, to achieve a bright red color.

Cocoa powder contains an antioxidant called anthocyanin, which is pH-sensitive, meaning it reacts to acids and bases. When raw cocoa powder reacts with acidic ingredients such as buttermilk and vinegar, it turns dark red.

White Vinegar: It sounds like a strange ingredient in a cake, but it is essential in a red velvet cake. This recipe calls for baking soda to leaven the cake (make the cake rise). The small amount of added vinegar allows the soda to do its best work.

Some red velvet recipes do actually call for beets, but there is no clear correlation between beets and Red Velvet cake, but rather just one theory on the cake's origins. The Adams Extract company attributes itself to making the “original” Red Velvet cake in the 1920s.

Red Velvet Cake is flavored with non-Dutch processed cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar. What makes this unique is that its red color is the result of a natural chemical reaction. The buttermilk and vinegar cause a reaction that brings out cocoa's anthocyanin. Anthocyanin ia a pigment found in cocoa beans and other plants.

What flavor is red velvet? While there are cocoa undertones, red velvet is not chocolate cake because it balances both chocolate and vanilla flavors. It contains cocoa but not the same quantity as traditional chocolate cake, resulting in a more subtle cocoa flavor and tanginess due to the buttermilk and vinegar.

Red velvet cakes also generally contain both buttermilk and vinegar, which, when combined with unprocessed cocoa, make for a tighter crumb texture and a tangier flavor than traditional chocolate cake.

Anthocyanin is very sensitive to changes in pH, meaning it reacts strongly to acids and bases alike. As Allrecipes explains, when the cocoa powder is mixed with naturally-acidic buttermilk, a traditional ingredient in original versions of velvet cake, it turns dark red.

If you don't want to use vinegar, you can substitute an equal amount of lemon juice. If you want to skip the acidic liquid altogether, you can substitute a tablespoon of baking powder for each teaspoon of baking soda. Then add water equal to the amount of vinegar you omitted.

What is a substitute for cocoa powder in red velvet cake? ›

Unsweetened chocolate chips are the best choice for the flavor closest to that of cocoa powder. Chocolate chips are best as a cocoa powder substitute in sweet treats such as pastries, cookies, brownies, cakes, pancakes, and pies.

You need something acidic- apple cider vinegar or lemon juice would also work. You can substitute white wine vinegar for white (sometimes called distilled) vinegar in the red velvet cake recipe. It is used in such small quantities that the subtle difference in flavor will not be noticed.

White vinegar substitute: If you need a different vinegar to substitute for white vinegar, use apple cider vinegar or malt vinegar. You could also swap in lemon or lime juice, depending on your recipe.

“You can use substitutes for pretty much any of the ingredients,” King says. “I prefer apple cider vinegar for its subtle kick, but any standard vinegar will do. And if you'd rather swap sour cream or yogurt for the buttermilk, that works just as well.”

In the 1930s, the Waldorf-Astoria, a famed New York City hotel, began serving red velvet cake. The hotel receives credit for creating the cake, but as the research shows, they only capitalized on a cake already somewhat known throughout the country.

While Chocolate Cake is made primarily with cocoa powder and sometimes melted chocolate, Red Velvet Cake is made with a small amount of cocoa powder, but is also known for its signature bright red color, which is usually achieved by adding red food coloring to the batter.

In the dessert world, this was initially called a “mahogany cake.” It delivered a light chocolate flavor and appeared red-brown due to the chemical reaction between baking soda, buttermilk, vinegar, and raw cocoa powder.

Early cakes were actually more like what we would today consider biscuits or cookies. They were flat and dry, and often had fruit or nuts added to them for flavor. The first cakes were probably made in ancient Egypt. Yeast was used to making them light and fluffy.