Waldorf-Astoria Red Velvet Cake Recipe | CDKitchen.com (2024)

FAQs

What makes red velvet cake taste so good? ›

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. Its uniqueness is a harmonious blend that sets it apart from other cakes.

Baking products like sugar and butter were a part of the rations. As a result, some bakers chose to use beet juice in their cakes. You can still find red velvet cake recipes today that call for beet juice. The red color of the beets makes the cake have a more delicious appeal.

Nicole Taylor, a cookbook author, described red velvet cake as a staple that only came out in Atlanta during special occasions, such as Christmas, Juneteenth, and other big celebrations. The color red also symbolizes joy, which explains its use as a celebration cake today in black communities.

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.

The Best Cocoa for Red Velvet Cake Is Natural Cocoa

Natural cocoa is the best cocoa for red velvet cake for two reasons. With a higher acidity, natural cocoa works with the cake's baking soda and buttermilk to leaven the cake to a tight, tender crumb. The results are an almost melt-in-your-mouth tender cake.

Unfortunately some red food colours have a bitter taste because of the ingredients used, particularly the colourant red #3 (E127). So it may help to check the ingredients of the red food colour or use a red food colour paste that is sold as "no taste".

The cocoa powder is used in less quantity and the taste develops by the mixing of vinegar and buttermilk with the cocoa powder. The recipe involves many ingredients in small quantity. The frosting- if used cream cheese is an expensive element in itself. It tastes wow if made at home without using any premix.

The red food colouring makes the cake batter prone to splitting, and turns everything it touches red; a couple of grams over on the cocoa powder and the cake goes brown instead of a rich red; the cream cheese frosting has a tendency to turn to gloop at the very last minute for no apparent reason; and the list goes on.

But where do we get this food coloring from? In the case of many red dyes, it comes from an unexpected source: The crushed bodies of a Central and South American insect, called the Cochineal.

If your red-velvet cake was made from beet-dye or other food additives, a ruddy colored stool is possible. Some medications can change the color of your stool as well.

How was the original red velvet cake made? ›

“Velvet” cakes using the aforementioned cocoa, vinegar, baking soda, and buttermilk gained popularity in the late 1800s United States, first through the Chocolate Mahogany Cake and later, the red velvet cake, as bakers began using natural cocoa that turned cakes a deep red color.

While the hotel long claims to having served its first version in the mid-1920s, culinary journals including Southern Living report the red velvet cake first appeared at the Waldorf in the mid-1930s — around the same time ritzy Toronto department store Eaton's starting serving red velvet cake.

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. This won't be chemically identical, but most people won't detect a difference.

Issue: Overmixing the batter can incorporate too much air, leading to a flat cake. Solution: Mix the ingredients just until they are combined. Overmixing, especially once the flour is added, can lead to a dense and flat texture.

Now, don't confuse distilled with basic white vinegar, which is stronger and has up to 25% acetic acid. That vinegar is sold exclusively for cleaning purposes and is not a good idea to ingest. However, beyond cooking, distilled white vinegar can be used for many of the same household chores.

The difference between Red Velvet Cake and other cakes are its ingredients and colors. No other layer cake uses buttermilk and vinegar in the recipe. When mixed with cocoa powder, the buttermilk and vinegar cause the chemical reaction that turns the cake red. The vinegar also helps preserve the cake's iconic color.

When raw cocoa powder reacts with acidic ingredients such as buttermilk and vinegar, it turns dark red. Although, the resulting cake is more of a ruddy brown color and not the gaudy red color you get from using food coloring.