red velvet cake

Any favorite old family favorite recipes you would share?

I have my mom's recipe at home. I will try to post later tonight.

This is the recipe I used this weekend. My 11 year old (today) requested this for her birthday cake.

Ingredients:
3 1/3 cups cake flour (NOT unbleached all-purpose flour). You have to buy specifically cake flour.
3/4 cup (or one and a half sticks) of butter, softened. So get this out of the fridge a half day or so before you plan on making the cake.
2 1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tbs red food coloring
3 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

If you're making the cake, grease and lightly flour three 9x2in round pans. Line with wax paper.
If you're making cupcakes, put cupcake liners in cupcake tin (will make 2 dozen).

Red Velvet here we come:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
In bowl #1 : sift cake flour and set aside.
In bowl #2: cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Cream for about five minutes until very light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time and continue to beat well.
In bowl #3: whisk food coloring, cocoa, and vanilla. Then combine with bowl #2.
In a measuring cup, stir salt into buttermilk. Add to bowl #2 in three parts, alternating with the cake flour. Beat until ingredients are incorporated, but do not over beat.
In bowl #4: mix the cider vinegar with the baking soda. This step makes you feel like a wacky scientist. Don't be surprised when the two start to pop pop and fizz fizz on you. Then add to bowl #2.
With a rubber spatula mix the dough well, scraping the sides making sure every part of batter is well-blended.
Divide into pans, or cupcake tin, and bake.
Cake will take 30-40 minutes.
The cupcakes should take about 12-15 minutes.
Use a cake-tester to test if you're not sure.

quote:

Originally posted by susanll

This is the recipe I used this weekend. My 11 year old (today) requested this for her birthday cake.

Ingredients:
3 1/3 cups cake flour (NOT unbleached all-purpose flour). You have to buy specifically cake flour.
3/4 cup (or one and a half sticks) of butter, softened. So get this out of the fridge a half day or so before you plan on making the cake.
2 1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
6 tbs red food coloring
3 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

If you're making the cake, grease and lightly flour three 9x2in round pans. Line with wax paper.
If you're making cupcakes, put cupcake liners in cupcake tin (will make 2 dozen).

Red Velvet here we come:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
In bowl #1 : sift cake flour and set aside.
In bowl #2: cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Cream for about five minutes until very light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time and continue to beat well.
In bowl #3: whisk food coloring, cocoa, and vanilla. Then combine with bowl #2.
In a measuring cup, stir salt into buttermilk. Add to bowl #2 in three parts, alternating with the cake flour. Beat until ingredients are incorporated, but do not over beat.
In bowl #4: mix the cider vinegar with the baking soda. This step makes you feel like a wacky scientist. Don't be surprised when the two start to pop pop and fizz fizz on you. Then add to bowl #2.
With a rubber spatula mix the dough well, scraping the sides making sure every part of batter is well-blended.
Divide into pans, or cupcake tin, and bake.
Cake will take 30-40 minutes.
The cupcakes should take about 12-15 minutes.
Use a cake-tester to test if you're not sure.

This is a favorite in my house. Although I love to cook indoors and out, I'm not a sweet eater or a "baker", so what type of icing? Butter cream? I've bought them from Publix before but never inquired about the icing.

Traditionally it is cream cheese frosting, but a buttercream would work.

This is a recipe I have copied off of a cake decorating site that is considered "true" red velvet cake around here. I have had the cake with both cream cheese and the following crisco type icing. They are both good to me. Hope this helps. :)

Red Velvet Cake - Sixties Style
Serves/Yields: 15
Prep. Time: 30 Min
Cook Time: 35 Min

Introduction
I've had this recipe for over 40 years. It was circulating among office workers in the sixties in the South. To me, it is THE Red Velvet Cake. It was the first time I ever heard of using Crisco in an icing, and I thought that was so weird.
Ingredients
Icing (Prepare first)

3 Tablspoons Flour
1 Cup Milk

1 Cup Crisco
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla


Cake

1/2 Cup Butter
1 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Cup Buttermilk
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Teaspoon Vinegar
2 OUNCES Red Food Coloring (That's 2 bottles y'all!)
2 1/2 Cups Cake Flour
1 Tablespoon Cocoa
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
Directions
Make the icing first. It's done in two parts, and the first part has to be totally cold.

Combine the flour and milk and place over medium heat, stirring until quite thick. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the hot mixture and place in fridge overnight or at least for several hours.

When ready to frost the cake, beat the Crisco, sugar and vanilla until creamy and fluffy. Then beat in the cold milk mixture a tablespoon at a time. The final result will be a fluffy, creamy frosting that resembles whipped cream.


Prepare the cake:

Cream the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Combine the buttermilk with the vanilla, food coloring and vinegar and set aside (it will look awful - don't worry!). Combine the dry ingredients and set aside. Add the dry ingredients and buttermilk mixture alternately to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix on medium speed about 2 minutes after everything is combined. Bake at 350 in two greased and floured 9" pans for one 9 X 12 oblong pan or 3 9" heart shaped pans. When the cake is COMPLETELY cool, frost with the icing.

quote:

Originally posted by paxpuella

This is a recipe I have copied off of a cake decorating site that is considered "true" red velvet cake around here. I have had the cake with both cream cheese and the following crisco type icing. They are both good to me. Hope this helps. :)

Red Velvet Cake - Sixties Style
Serves/Yields: 15
Prep. Time: 30 Min
Cook Time: 35 Min

Introduction
I've had this recipe for over 40 years. It was circulating among office workers in the sixties in the South. To me, it is THE Red Velvet Cake. It was the first time I ever heard of using Crisco in an icing, and I thought that was so weird.
Ingredients
Icing (Prepare first)

3 Tablspoons Flour
1 Cup Milk

1 Cup Crisco
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla


Cake

1/2 Cup Butter
1 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Cup Buttermilk
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Teaspoon Vinegar
2 OUNCES Red Food Coloring (That's 2 bottles y'all!)
2 1/2 Cups Cake Flour
1 Tablespoon Cocoa
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
Directions
Make the icing first. It's done in two parts, and the first part has to be totally cold.

Combine the flour and milk and place over medium heat, stirring until quite thick. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the hot mixture and place in fridge overnight or at least for several hours.

When ready to frost the cake, beat the Crisco, sugar and vanilla until creamy and fluffy. Then beat in the cold milk mixture a tablespoon at a time. The final result will be a fluffy, creamy frosting that resembles whipped cream.


Prepare the cake:

Cream the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Combine the buttermilk with the vanilla, food coloring and vinegar and set aside (it will look awful - don't worry!). Combine the dry ingredients and set aside. Add the dry ingredients and buttermilk mixture alternately to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix on medium speed about 2 minutes after everything is combined. Bake at 350 in two greased and floured 9" pans for one 9 X 12 oblong pan or 3 9" heart shaped pans. When the cake is COMPLETELY cool, frost with the icing.

my mother makes this same icing but she uses butter instead of crisco.
hope i didn't give away a family secret but this icing is great!!!!! i always have my wife make a double batch and instead of icecream i go for extra icing....

Can't wait to try these in preparation for a family reunion. Thank you all so much!

Packerwmn, did you ever find the red velvet cake recipe?

YOu know I forgot to check. I will look tonight - I'm making a note now.

Finally I got it. Now I haven't made this since I was a kid with my mom (who is no longer with us) so I'm not going to be able to clarify much, but it looks fairly similar to the other ones above. I just remember it was very pretty and quite tastey!

Waldorf Astoria Cake aka Red Velvet Cake

½ c. butter
1-1/2 c. sugar
Cream well, Add 2 eggs, one at a time along with 1 oz. red food coloring

Sift together:
2-1/2 c. cake flour
2 rounded tsp. cocoa
½ tsp. salt
Mix together egg mixture, dry ingredients and alternate with 1 c. buttermilk and 1 tsp. vanilla.

Dissolve 1 tsp. baking soda in 1 Tbsp. vinegar. Fold in last. Bake in 3 layers at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 min.

Frosting:
Cook 1 c. milk and 5 Tbsp. flour until thick, stirring constantly. Cool well.
Cream together: 1 c. butter, 1 c. sugar, & 1 tsp. vanilla
Add cooled mixture and beat well, about 10 min.

Frost cooled cake layers.

I love red velvet cake. I make it without the cocoa and use 1 cup of buttermilk,1 tsp vinegar,1 tsp vanilla and almost 3 bottles of red food coloring with cream cheese frosting with pecans in it.

On a tangental note, you're probably familiar with thre urban legend of "The Red Velvet Cake Recipe", in which a woman asks the hotel restaurant for the recipe and gets it along with a bill for $50-100 on her room tab, so she ends up mimeographing said recipe and sending it everywhere. Since most folks nowadays have no idea what a "Red Velvet Cake" is, the urban legend had morphed into "The Mrs Fields Cookie Recipe", with the updates of the charge is now to her credit card and the amount dunned is now in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

I've seen Red Velvet Cake, and I have to say I cannot imagine eating it.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

I've seen Red Velvet Cake, and I have to say I cannot imagine eating it.

I've eaten it several times since I moved to the South and while there's nothing wrong with the taste I've yet to understand why it's so popular. The main downside I see is the way the red color causes so many people to imitate Gene Simmons.

Is there any "lore" about where/when this cake was invented?

It seems to be a "southern" thing.

Packerwmn-thats the exact recipe my Mother used-The Waldorf Astoria recipe.

quote:

Originally posted by janifer

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

I've seen Red Velvet Cake, and I have to say I cannot imagine eating it.

I've eaten it several times since I moved to the South and while there's nothing wrong with the taste I've yet to understand why it's so popular. The main downside I see is the way the red color causes so many people to imitate Gene Simmons.

Red Velvet Cake showed up at Costco last month. It was baked in square cakes pans and decorated to look like a package with ribbon and bow.

Ann - isn't it funny how that works. I think that recipe came from my Grandma who lived down south later in life, but we've been in Wisconsin all my life. I see the variations on the recipe, more so for the frosting than the cake itself. I guess I'll have to try to bake it one of these days. I'm not a huge fan of cake in general - but just in memory of mom it might be nice!

I think the key and quality of interest to a red velvet cake compared to a cake colored red is time and effort

The red velvet cake I was taught to make is with ONLY the finest of baker's flour sifted several times. And when mixing the batter, let it mix for as long as you have time. I don't really know if longer is much difference because the shortest time I have ever let the mixer run was 1 hour.

BUT......I do know the cake is the absolute smoothest cake I've ever eaten. Air bubbles are minimum. The consistancy almost rivals pudding but in cake form.

I think the addition of buttermilk makes it moister than most cakes...

I don't care for red velvet cake, although I love the icings that generally adorn the cake. My late father had asthma and was allergic to chocolate, and the first time my mother made the cake which included a small amount of coccoa, he ate a large slice of cake. Within minutes he started having an asthma attack and had to get his inhaler. Must have been the coccoa, since she left it out of the cake when she baked it again, and he ate it and never had an asthma attack again. He always asked the baker if the cake contained coccoa if he was offered red velvet cake. I think I now love chocolate so much because we rarely had it at home when I was a child.

My aunty once had told us a story about how she had to get checked out by her doctor because when she went to the bathroom (ahem) everything was blood red! Turns out she was fine. She had eaten some red velvet cake which had called for a whole bottle of red food coloring.

I had my first slice of red velvet cake today. There's a gourmet deli that sells a brand that apparently was on the Oprah's show, was Oprah's favorite, etc...

Well good for Oprah but I didn't like it at all. It was VERY sweet. TOO sweet.

Is this typical?

I made it for the first time last Christmas and the one thing I'd have to say, it was festive - it did call for a whole bottle of red food coloring - Not to offend those that love it - but I just don't get it - the best part of it was the cream cheese frosting, and as someone mentioned already, I would rather have it served on carrot cake.

Our family ( on both sides ) never made the Red Velvet Cake... Although it is a certainly scrumptious cake , it's one that we never made use of in our holiday cake repertoire...The cakes that we still make are older in origin than the Red Velvet cake...