Red Velvet Cake | Recipe for Red Velvet Cake (2024)

FAQs

What makes a red velvet cake a red velvet cake? ›

Today, red velvet cake is made by combining cocoa powder, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour as well as buttermilk, vinegar, and red food coloring that gives the cake its iconic red tint. In a classic red velvet cake, cream cheese frosting is paired but the cake can be really be frosted with anything.

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.

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.

Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Propylene Glycol Mono-And Diesters Of Fats, Mono And Diglycerides), Cocoa Powder Processed With Alkali, Colored With (Red 40 With Invert Sugar), ...

Many years ago, the red color came from the presence of vinegar and buttermilk reacting with the anthocyanins in traditional cocoa powder. But for most of the last few decades, the red color has been supplied by Red #40 dye, in part because cocoa powder used now is alkalized to neutralize its acidity.

Red velvet cake is a Southern American delight that blends a vanilla cake with a striking red hue from food coloring, mixed with several tablespoons of cocoa powder. Its cake batter gets a tangy kick from buttermilk and white vinegar, perfectly offsetting the sweetness of the classic cream butter-cheese frosting.

Don't over-whisk the sponge batter

This is a great tip for all sponge cakes - over-whisking once you've added the flour is the main reason why cakes go dry and crumbly, as it causes the gluten in the flour to develop.

Not Enough Fat:

Fat is essential for keeping baked goods moist and tender. If you use too little fat in your red velvet cake recipe, the cake can turn out dry. Make sure to use the amount of fat specified in your recipe, and do not substitute with lower-fat ingredients.

Red velvet cake wouldn't be red without food coloring. I recommend gel food coloring because the color is concentrated, so you need less of it. For natural coloring, use beet powder. If you don't want to use food coloring, leave it out!

While red velvet cake is technically a cocoa cake, there is a key difference between standard chocolate cake and red velvet cake. Chocolate cake recipes traditionally use Dutch-processed cocoa, while red velvet cake uses unprocessed cocoa, a more acidic ingredient that produces a deeper, more intense chocolate flavor.

What flavor is pink velvet? ›

what flavor is pink velvet? I like to think of pink velvet cake as red velvet's posh younger cousin. It has a very mild chocolate flavor with a moist, soft and tender crumb.

Devil's food cake typically has coffee, sour cream, or water in the batter. While red velvet cake has tangier flavored liquids like buttermilk or vinegar. The different liquids also mean that Devil's food cakes have more moisture, which results in a more tender cake than red velvet.

Pillsbury™ Moist Supreme® Red Velvet Cake Mix is an easy, fresh and delicious dessert.

Red Velvet Cake also has a slightly tart and has a mild cocoa flavor, while Chocolate cake is creamy, buttery, and has a rich cocoa taste. Red Velvet Cake is smooth, light, soft, with a velvety crumb (hence, the “velvet” in Red Velvet Cake). Chocolate cake is soft and fluffy and has a solid crumb.

Betty Crocker Delights Super Moist Red Velvet Cake Mix is rich and decadent. Ready to bake in minutes, this red velvet cake can be topped with delicious frosting for a classic take, or try something new with one of Betty Crocker's many baking mix recipes.

All used red food coloring. The reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in cocoa and keeps the cake moist, light, and fluffy. 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.

A red velvet cake is a combination of a vanilla and chocolate cake, with a distinct tangy taste. This is due to the buttermilk and vinegar (which are common ingredients in a red velvet cake).

Natural cocoa tastes more fruity and light than the rich Dutch cocoa used in most chocolate cakes, and natural cocoa's acidity also takes on a leavening property when combined with baking soda and buttermilk. This makes red velvet ever so slightly tarter and lighter than chocolate cake, as well as more fluffy and tall.

Popular in the southern U.S., red velvet cake is a vanilla cake with a few tablespoons of cocoa powder and red food coloring mixed in. Vinegar and buttermilk bring some acid to the batter, adding a bit of tanginess that balances out the sweet cream cheese-butter frosting that is standard.