I like cake. I like to research the origins and stories of certain cake recipes from around the world. No cake however, has had me as stymied as this elusive 'Red Velvet Cake'. For a cake that is only one-hundred years old, there is surprisingly little fact to go on.
So, here I sit in a room sprinkled with Legos and small shoes - and I wonder.....and wonder. Last night as I was searching through pile after pile of papers trying to uncover ONE single, solitary clue as to where this cake came from and why in the world it is purported to be a "Southern Cake", my husband walked in.
"I can't seem to figure this darn thing out!" I said, slapping my hand on the pile of papers to my right. "There's NOTHING.... just nothing written about this cake that makes any sense at all!!"
"Well", he said, "Maybe there is no point to cake. Maybe it's like what Willy Wonka says about candy....It's just FUN!"
"There......is always a point to cake." I replied coldly.
"Oh, now you're just sounding crazy." He said, smiling.
"OUT! BLASPHEMER!!"
Don't mess with the Cake Lady. Ahhh......while he can build a fantastic cake pedestal, a Watson he is not. And so I sit, and ponder here on my own.
Myth:
Many people have called the Red Velvet Cake, "The Waldorf-Astoria Cake", "The One Hundred Dollar Cake", or the "Two Hundred and Fifty Dollar Cake", because as urban legend would have it, someone had to pay either $100 or $250 after they were given this recipe by The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Yeah - just like that Neiman Marcus cookie recipe that circulated in the 90's (by the way, I tried that cookie recipe when I was a teenager and it wasn't that good). Both the cake and the cookie legends have been debunked. In fact, hotel records have shown that this cake was never served at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at all! Hmmmm.....
Mystery:
In the 1940's and 1950's, a lady in Canada- the Matriarch of the Eaton’s Department Store chain was in-fact, credited as the 'inventor' of the Red Velvet Cake. It is said that her employees had to swear to keep the recipe a secret. Funny, because the recipe has been traced to certain newspapers as early as 1902. An elusive cover-up?
Blame it on Science:
I've read that a certain chemical reaction between the acidity in non-dutch-processed cocoa (cocoa not treated with alkali) and the baking soda was said to produce the 'red color'. This has since been debunked on several accounts, one of which has been in my kitchen. IF the aforementioned 'reaction' was true, then WHY, WHY, WHY do some of the earliest copies of this recipe contain pureed beets? Huh? Yeah, and the UFO's were really weather balloons! I don't buy it.
Southern?
As far as I can tell, the only thing Southern here is the base recipe for this cake, which is the Devil's Food Cake. IF Red Velvet Cake is just the original Devil's Food Cake, then why not just call the darn thing Devil's Food Cake and be done with it?
Fact:
It has been said that after Dutch-Processed cocoa was made widely available, the 'chemical reaction' (that has since been debunked), wasn't present and people had to add red dye to achieve the desired color. Bunk. What about the beets? I'm getting frustrated here.
The only real fact that I could pin down, was that in 1972 the Russian Government released a report claiming that Red Dye #2 could possibly cause cancer. This, and this alone put a halt to all production of the Red Velvet Cake.
I smell a conspiracy!!
Yeah! That's exactly what I'm sayin'!The Backpacking Cakesters's "Dead Drop" Cherry- Red Velvet Cupcakes
A.K.A. Secret Agent Cupcakes, Code Name: Cherry Bomb
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F.
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa - Not Dutch-processed (see!)
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 - 4 tsp red food coloring
Sift together all dry ingredients. Set aside.
Beat butter till smooth and fluffy. Add sugar and whip till creamy. Add eggs, one at at time, stirring after every addition. Dump dry ingredients and the rest of the ingredients into your bowl in one fell swoop. Hurry up and mix this batter before your neighbors find out. Pour into 24 prepared cupcake tins. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until done. Cool on a wire rack and frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
First, a word on Cream Cheese Frosting and Red Velvet Cake-
Cream Cheese Frosting is really one of the best frostings on Earth. I have heard it said that the best thing about a Red Velvet Cake is in fact, that it is a vehicle for Cream Cheese Frosting. For people who decrease the amount of cocoa in the cake recipe in order to achieve a startling red color, this claim must be true (a true Red Velvet Cake should be a deep burgundy, not a startling Red - keep the neighbors guessing, you know). However, my cake recipe is really very good and wonderful and chocolaty, so the Cream Cheese Frosting is really the perfect partner to it, and doesn't overshadow it in any way.
Further - Cream Cheese Frosting is very fussy and is terrible when it's too sweet, so you shouldn't follow the recipe to a 't'.
Here's what you do:
Get 1 box of Philly and 1 stick of butter. Mix them together well. Add 1 1/2 tsp real vanilla extract. Don't use the fake stuff or my arm will reach out of this computer and smack you. Mix, mix, mix. Measure out 4 cups confectioners sugar and add it 1/2 cup at a time until you find the perfect flavor mix FOR YOU. I like mine very cheesecakey (not too sweet) so I only use about three cups of the four. You see, cream cheese varies in 'twangyness' from box to box. Let your palate decide what to do.
Frost the cupcakes and top each with a cherry. DIVINE!
It is said that Conspiracy Theorists either have too much time on their hands, or desperately crave adventure. As I sit here heavily pregnant, in this room full of Legos and little shoes, I'm thinking that it must be the latter. Truthfully, I just wanted to make tiny little sunglasses for one of my cupcakes.
However.......just in case I'm on to something......REMEMBER....you heard it here first!!
Cue the Bond Music!
Have A Happy Week!!
2 comments:
Trying this one after Thanksgiving when we are all sad about the pumpkin pie being gone.
Oh, and your pumpkin muffins were fabulous! We all ate them up in about 2 days.
As someone who adores chocolate cake, I was interesting in your experience. But as delicious as I am sure it is, I would have to turn down any such treat if it contained synthetic dye. (Yes, I know you didn't offer me a slice, but I'm just being hypothetical here.)
So what on earth could be more powerful than my active salivary glands? It's the knowledge of what artificial dyes are, and what they do to people.
Do I sound like a spoil sport? I would have said that at one time, and then I learned that a tiny dose was enough to give my husband a 4-day migraine and to cause my oldest daughter to act demented.
I also learned that dyes such as red 40, yellow 5, etc. are made from petroleum; in fact most of the dyes in our food start out in petroleum refineries in China. (Yum!)
I learned that they can trigger symptoms now being called "ADD" and "ADHD." What's more studies have linked them with DNA damage, reproductive damage, nerve damage, cancer, as well as asthma, hives, headaches, hives and various rashes...etc. Take a look at www.diet-studies.com of you're interested in the science. And you can find out more than you ever thought you'd want to know about these dyes at www.feingold.org.
Another interesting blog would be to write about what's really behind those pretty marischino cherries!
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