Red velvet cake...what is all the fuss? and your recipes

[Gattopardo]

So there is a thing about red velvet cake at the moment.  Have to make one for about 50 people.  Looking up recipes and there seems to be a discussion if you should use cake flour, not the normal plain and self raising flour but cake flour.  Have some t45 and t55 flour so that isn't a problem.

Looking at the cheese icing, the cheese needs to be thicker than the tub spreadable so what cheese would you recommend.

[Jakob W]

Dunno about the flour issue, but for cream cheese icing you can either line a sieve with muslin and drain it in there to drain liquid and thicken up, or just beat up some double cream until stiff and mix that with the cream cheese - this also works to rescue runny cream cheese icing.

[citoyen]

We had a massive red velvet cake in the office last week to mark the 60th birthday of one of my colleagues, who has been with the company for 25 years. That was easily big enough to feed 50 people.

And it was truly incredible. Ever so soft and light, and the cream cheese icing was not too sickly. I think I now get the fuss about red velvet cake.

No idea how to make it though, sorry! My understanding is that most of what passes for red velvet cake is just ordinary chocolate cake with red colouring added, but real red velvet cake gets its colour from the cocoa. Or something like that.

I'll make enquiries as to where the cake we had came from if you like.

[Jakob W]

IIRC modern cocoa processing uses the 'Dutch process', which affects pH and colour, but older methods produced a more reddish-brown powder that when used in large amounts resulted in a reddish cake.

[pcolbeck]

IIRC modern cocoa processing uses the 'Dutch process', which affects pH and colour, but older methods produced a more reddish-brown powder that when used in large amounts resulted in a reddish cake.

I remember Rowntrees Cocoa being a reddish brown when I was a kid. I don't know if it still is.