What Is Red Velvet Cake?
Red velvet cake,, is a deep red chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and cocoa powder. It is usually made with a mixture of buttermilk, butter, cocoa, vinegar and flour. Food coloring is not used in traditional recipes.
It is called "velvet cake" with its moist, light and fluffy texture. The taste of chocolate is not felt intensely. The red velvet cake, thought to have emerged in the Victorian Era, was known as a dessert preferred on special occasions at that time.
Why is Red Velvet Cake Red? Natural cocoa powder contains anthocyanin, a compound found in fruits that creates a dark color. When the anthocyanin reacts with the vinegar and buttermilk in this recipe, the cake turns brown. Red food coloring is added to the batter and the cake turns into a reddish color.
What Does Red Velvet Cake Taste Like?
Red velvet cake gets its main flavor from its cream. In addition to its cream, buttermilk and vinegar used in cake dough add acidity to this cake. It has a light chocolate flavor as it contains a small amount of cocoa powder. Red velvet cake is a creamy, soft and moist cake.
What Is The Difference Between Chocolate And Red Velvet Cake?
Is Red Velvet Cake Chocolate Cake? There are similarities between the red velvet cake and the chocolate cake recipe. However, there are some differences that distinguish the red velvet cake from the chocolate brownie. One of these is the amount of cocoa powder. The flavor of chocolate is very light in the red velvet cake. In addition to the cocoa amount, vinegar and buttermilk are added to the red velvet cake dough. The reaction of these materials with cocoa powder creates a brownish color. Red food coloring is added to the dough and the red cake takes its final form.
How To Make Red Velvet Cake From Scratch?
Photo By Petite Gourmets- To make red velvet cake from scratch at home, first preheat the oven to 350 °F.
- Grease the cake pans and set aside for later use. In a large mixing bowl add flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Then add the cocoa powder to the mixture and whisk all the dry ingredients with the help of a mixer. In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar and butter to get a fluffy consistency. Add the oil (or canola oil) to the mixture.
- Add the eggs one by one and mix the ingredients one round after each egg.
- Add the red food coloring either at this step or with the flour mixture.
- Then add the buttermilk, vinegar and vanilla. Alternately add the dry and wet ingredients to the egg-sugar mixture. Mix the ingredients after each addition.
- Pour the cake dough you have prepared into two molds equally.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes.
- Dip a toothpick in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it is cooked. After you take it out of the oven, leave the sponge cakes on the wire rack to cool completely.
How To Make Cream Cheese Frosting for Red Velvet Cake?
The ingredients you need to make cream for red velvet cake; It is butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract. First, whisk the cream cheese and unsalted butter in a mixing bowl with the help of a hand blender. Continue this blending process until you get a smooth and fluffy consistency. Then add the vanilla and sugar (or powdered sugar) to the mixture and mix until a light and fluffy consistency is obtained. Spread it on the cake layers that you have cooled before. If you want, spread the cream to the top and sides of cake layers also.
How To Make Vegan Red Velvet Cake?
You can turn this red cake recipe into a vegan recipe. You can easily prepare a vegan red velvet recipe with some changes in the ingredients.
Ingredients for the Vegan Red Velvet Cake:
Milk: You can choose soy milk instead of buttermilk used in the original recipe. You can add 1 cup of soy milk and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to the recipe. We do not recommend coconut milk or nut milk for this recipe. The distinctive strong flavors of these milk varieties can change the taste of red velvet dessert.
Oil: As a vegetable oil, canola oil is one of the types of oil that best suits this recipe. Sunflower oil can also be preferred. But olive oil can cause a dominant flavor in this recipe. Therefore, we do not recommend its use.
Butter: You can choose vegan butter.
Egg: You can use flaxseed eggs.
Food Coloring: Most food colouring products are not vegan. You should prefer gel form food coloring instead of liquid form. Therefore, be sure to check their labels. You can choose vegan brands such as Wilton, TruColor, Color Garden, Sugarflair. You can also use beetroot.
Cream Cheese: You can use vegan cream cheese for cream. Go Veggie, Violife, Nush are among the brands that have vegan cream cheese. You can also choose these brands or other vegan brands.
Apart from the above ingredients, flour, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, cocoa are also used in this recipe.
When making Vegan Red Velvet Cake Recipe ,mix milk and apple cider vinegar. In a separate bowl, whisk the vegan butter and sugar with a mixer until it becomes creamy. Add wet ingredients and red food coloring. Likewise, whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Using the mixer at low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the sugar mixture and whisk. Then divide the batter evenly into the molds. Bake it for 35-40 minutes in the oven that you have preheated at 350 °F.
For Vegan Cake Frosting, whisk cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla until you get a fluffy cream consistency. After the sponge cakes have cooled, spread the cream between the cake layers. Serve it by slicing.
How To Make Gluten-Free Red Velvet Cake?
Making Gluten-Free Red Velvet is pretty easy. You can prepare gluten-free red velvet cake at home by changing some of the ingredients in the original recipe.
To make the Gluten-Free Red Velvet cake recipe, you can opt for gluten-free flour and unsweetened cocoa powder. You should make sure that red food coloring is gluten-free. You can now prepare your gluten-free cake.
For making Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake, whisk butter and sugar in a bowl until it becomes creamy. Then add the egg and red food coloring. Whisk the gluten-free flour and other dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Alternately add the dry ingredients and buttermilk (or milk-lemon juice) mixture to the sugar mixture and whisk at low speed. When the dough is thick, divide it into molds evenly. Bake in the oven that you preheat at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.
For frosting, whisk the cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla until you get a creamy consistency. Chill the cream you have prepared in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. After the sponges have cooled, spread the frosting between the cake layers. Serve it by slicing.
What Frosting Goes Well With Red Velvet Cake?
Traditionally, red velvet cake is prepared with cream cheese cream, but it can also be served with vanilla, butter or chocolate cream according to your taste.
How To Store Red Velvet Cake?
You can store the leftover red velvet cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. You can also store this cake in the freezer. You can freeze it for up to 2 months without frosting on it. Wrap sponge cake in cling film or foil. You should freeze it in an airtight container. When you want to use it, keep it in the fridge overnight. Add frosting after it dissolves at room temperature.
