BEST Southern Red Velvet Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the best cocoa for red velvet cake? ›

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.

While red velvet cake is technically a cocoa cake, there is a key difference between standard chocolate cake and red velvet cake. Chocolate cake recipes traditionally use Dutch-processed cocoa, while red velvet cake uses unprocessed cocoa, a more acidic ingredient that produces a deeper, more intense chocolate flavor.

The buttermilk and vinegar give the cake that tender, light, and fluffy texture. Red velvet cake is also usually paired with white cream-cheese frosting.

Not Enough Fat:

Fat is essential for keeping baked goods moist and tender. If you use too little fat in your red velvet cake recipe, the cake can turn out dry. Make sure to use the amount of fat specified in your recipe, and do not substitute with lower-fat ingredients.

If the recipe calls for red food coloring, either will be fine so use what you have. If it uses beets or another natural color source, use natural cocoa.

Due to the fact that it uses cocoa powder rather than chocolate, red velvet cake is more subtle in chocolate flavor than a chocolate cake. In terms of the cocoa flavor concentration, we like to think of red velvet cake as somewhere between a vanilla/white cake and a chocolate cake.

Red velvet cake is traditionally a red, crimson, or scarlet-colored layer cake, layered with ermine icing. Traditional recipes do not use food coloring, with the red color possibly due to non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa, and possibly due to the usage of brown sugar, formerly called red sugar.

People were happy to buy a red cake because it felt more special. The red color of the dessert isn't very important to the flavor of the cake. Instead, the dramatic red color is more of an eye-catching statement piece to impress guests. Today, people go crazy over being able to add red velvet to their menu items.

The purpose of the vinegar is two fold. First, it interacts with the baking soda to leaven the cake. Without it, the cake will be dense, flat, heavy, and the flavor will be flatter as well.

If you don't want to use vinegar, you can substitute an equal amount of lemon juice. 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.

Can I use white vinegar instead of distilled vinegar for a red velvet cake? ›

White wine vinegar is a good substitute as it is also fairly mild.

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.

In several regions, the cake was considered a luxury due to its intense labor and ingredient-rich profile. It wasn't just a dessert but a reward served for special occasions. Today, the vivid red color associated with red velvet cake is due to food coloring.

Oh yes, you sure can. This recipe has a combination of butter and oil to give off that nice buttery taste while keeping it soft and moist at the same time. Cake using pure butter tends to be more dense and dry compared to adding oil into the batter.

In this situation, Dutch processed cocoa powder is the best choice since baking soda neutralizes the acid in most cake recipes. So, if you used Dutch-processed cocoa powder instead, the baking soda would not affect the recipe. Cake recipes call for baking soda when the cake ingredients are acidic.

We would suggest using a cocoa powder from a quality chocolate maker and there are several different ones around. Green & Black's is available in many countries and Valrhona is also widely distributed. In the US Ghiradelli is another good brand (sometimes this is sold as "baking cocoa").

Chocolate cake is flavored with cocoa powder, chocolate chips, or melted chocolate. On the other hand, though red velvet cake has cocoa powder that gives it a slightly chocolatey flavor, the buttermilk and vinegar add a tart edge making it different between the two.