How to Create a Totally Faustian Dessert
Posted By seovine on May 28, 2011
Chocolate cake is good. It is very, very good… and very difficult to just stop at a small slice. Sometimes, however, you get the craving for something that’s just a little different. I know I do. Well, look no further than the glory of the red velvet cake. Did you hear the dramatic drum roll? Because I just did. It’s been said that red velvet cake originated at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Red velvet cake is actually a chocolate cake, which is prepared by adding red food coloring to the cake. I read somewhere that, in the past, cooks used beets, or beet baby food, to give the cake the red color. Sounds appetizing, right? Beets in your cake, go figure.
As a dental practice management consultant, I have travelled all over the United States to host dental website marketing seminars, and wherever restaurants I visit, I always order red velvet cake if it’s on the menu. Sometimes I order chocolate cake, but that’s a whole other story and recipe. Thanks to a resurgence in popularity in the past few years, many stores and bakeries now carry a variety of red velvet cake versions in addition to finding them in restaurants. While tasty (I haven’t met a red velvet cake that I haven’t liked), truly, one of the best red velvet cakes you can find is one that you can make yourself. I found this fact out one time after I had a particularly dire craving only to find out that, for whatever reason, there was no red velvet cake in town to be found – did I accidentally flip myself into an alternate dimension, or what? Whatever the case, I had to make one myself. After trying several different recipes, I think the one from James Beard’s American Cookery really hits the mark. And guess what? This recipe is beet-free. Recipe below:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 tsp red food coloring
2 Tbsp water
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk, or sour milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp vinegar
Cream the butter, and cream in the sugar until very light. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Mix the cocoa, food coloring, and water, and add to the creamed mixture. Sift the flour with the baking powder, and add alternately with the buttermilk. Blend well, at low speed. Dissolve the baking soda in the vinegar, and fold carefully into the batter. Pour into two 9-inch greased and floured cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cool in the pans on racks for several minutes, then turn out on the racks to cool completely.
For frosting, beat 8 oz. of cream cheese, 1 Tbsp sour cream, 1/4 cup softened butter and 1 Tbsp vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in 16 oz. of powdered sugar until smooth.
I have say, though I do love my chocolate cake, and the red velvet cake is, actually, a chocolate cake dyed red, the cream cheese frosting and the notorious red dye makes this dessert a popular classic. Even the dentists, whom I see at the dental marketing seminars, get pretty excited when red velvet cake is catered in to enjoy during a break!