Red Velvet Cake History (from The Cook’s Country Cookbook)

taken from an email sent to me by “The Cooks Country Cookbook”

What exactly makes a Red Velvet Cake so red…and velvety? Red velvet cake is a tender, brilliant red cake, swathed in sweet but tangy cream cheese frosting. The cake should be as delicious as it is eye catching — so we set out to make our own foolproof version.

First question — why is it red? A faint red color is the by-product of a chemical reaction between vinegar, buttermilk, and cocoa powder. During our research, we found nineteenth century recipes with names like Red Devil Cake and Oxblood cake. Most of these cakes deepened the color with beets (which also added sweetness), and later, thanks to the miracle of science, by red food coloring. We tried several versions of the cake with beets, but no one liked their vegetal flavor. We reluctantly agreed that there was no good “natural” alternative to food coloring. (In the 1970’s the cake fell out of favor due to the health scares related to red dye number 2 — the fears were proved to be unfounded). So food coloring it was, and there was no reason to skimp on it. Now that the cake was red, we needed to guarantee the velvet texture. After fiddling with the basic formula, we realized that a super-acidic batter (with both buttermilk and vinegar) was needed to react with the baking soda and create a fine, tender crumb. We now had a cake that was red, velvety, and tasted great too.