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« The Australian Method of Cake Decorating | Main | Sunday's Daily News Feature »

Red Velvet Cake

LIBBY QUESTION

Dear Rose,
I am an avid fan of yours and have been dedicated to the Cake Bible for as long as I have been baking. I've always wished you had a recipe for Red Velvet Cake in your book. I have tried to use your method of incorporating ingredients, but still have not found the success I experience with your recipes in baking. Do you have a recipe and if so would you share it?
Thank you for making me a better baker. Your book is amazing (as is your pie cookbook which I also love).
Most sincerely and with much admiration

ROSE REPLY

thank you dear libby. a red velvet cake is simply a layer cake that uses one bottle of liquid red food color for some of the liquid, so all you have to do is chose any of my cakes (yellow or white) and replace an equal volume of the liquid with the red food color.

Comments

Geri - Congratulations! Do you have a photo to share on the forum?

The birthday went great! My son was not only surprised but he loved the cake. I did it! The cream cheese frosting was to die for. Everyone enjoyed the cake! Thanks much!

Geri, I hope he has a wonderful birthday and the cake turns out great! Let us know how the day went.

Thanks much for your help! Wish me luck! I have never made a red velvet cake and I will try to make one tomorrow for my son's 28th birthday. I will also make the cream cheese frosting! I am so glad I came upon this site. It is now on my favorite sites list!

Yes, Geri
I ditto that! Only cream cheese frosting should top that cake.

Hi Geri - here in VA, only cream cheese frosting will do on a red velvet cake.

Help! What is the true frosting which is used on the red velvet cake? The majority of the recipes I have seen call for the flour/butter/sugar icing and I have also seen the cream cheese frostings. Which one is true to this cake. My son wants this for his birthday cake tomorrow. Thanks!

Laura,
When is her birthday? Is there enough time to mail some red food coloring to you?
I don't know of a reliable substitute.
Lori V.

My daughter wants red velvet cake for her birthday.we live in Italy and I cannot find red food coloring.I saw someone asked for possible substitutes, but I didn't see an answer. (Beets turn brown?) Anyone know of red food coloring substitute? Grazie Mille!

Additionally, I might consider freezing a whole, crumb-coated cake though.

Do you mean freeze leftovers slices, or an entire cake? I would consider freezing leftovers, but know the quality of your thawed slice might be a bit different than fresh.

I personally would not freeze a whole, decorated cake. I would much rather freeze the cake layers seperately, and then thaw and frost as needed.

Can you freeze the Red Velvet cake that has been frosted with the flour/milk/sugar/butter frosting? I know you can with a buttercreme or one that has cream cheese in it.

Actually, I don't believe Rose makes a Red Velvet cake mix - scratch that idea.

You mention time constraints, but the only suggestion I could make for you to doctor up your plan is to avoid pre-made frosting at all costs... it's overly sweet, gritty, and has a very unpleasant and chemical tasting quality. Run of the mill cake mixes aren't quite as bad, but if you can find one of Rose's cake mixes that would be much better.

I am making Red Velvet Cupcakes for a potluck. I have opted to use a store bought mix and frosting due to time constraints. Any ideas to doctor it up a bit?

Red Velvet cakers,
I recently posted my new recipe for Red Velvet cake on Rose's new Forum. You might want to check out the thread and recipe.
Lori V.

I know this is a month + after this discussion, but I thought I'd add that when I first starting baking, the frosting recipe for the Red Velvet Cake (from the Adams Vanilla bottle I believe) called for shortening instead of butter. I've never had a failure with Crisco in this frosting. I beat the Crisco and granulated sugar for up to 30 minutes so as to dissolve the sugar, before adding the cooked and cooled flour/milk mixture.

Bruce,
I agree with Patrincia that temperature is most likely the problem. Your recipe is sort of like a pastry-cream butter cream. Each of the two components should be roughly the same temperature when you combine them together, otherwise, it will break, or "curdle."

Bruce - I'm not familiar with this kind of icing, but assuming your milk/flour mixture has thickened properly and cooled completely, sounds like maybe your butter is too warm when you add it. How long do you let it sit out at room temp? The butter should never have a greasy or separated look. It should look exactly like a cold stick of butter, but be squishable when touched.

Another thought is maybe the icing is being mixed for too long... when it "breaks", does it do so immediately, or after you've been mixing for a while?

The recipe I use is:

1c. sweet milk
3 Tbs. flour
1c. white sugar
1c. butter
1 Tbs. vanilla

Mix milk and flour to smooth paste in double boiler over simmering water, until thick. Cool completely.
Cream sugar and butter until fluffy, add vanilla.
Gradually add 1 Tbs. cooked mixture at a time to butter/sugar beating continuously.
Beat at full speed for 2 minutes.
Spread on top of each layer (not sides).

Rose:
I am thrilled that you are developing a redvelvet cake recipe. Red velvet cake is a favorite of my best friend and my significant other. I just can't find one that I like. I have tried 4 different recipies to date and was even thinking of trying to develop one on my own, using the principles that I've learned reading your books. The prosepect of such a project was a little daunting...I don't know...cake with vinegar, a little cocoa, lots of red food coloring... I am, however, by nature a lazy person and have just kept putting it off... besides, what do you do with all the cake from the trial runs? lol...My door men would be very happy (I'm always sending down cake for them anyway). I have baked my way through much of the cake bible and have yet to find a recipe that wasn't spectacular. I'm sure that your red velvet cake will be amazing!. I can wait. I may be lazy but I'm patient.

Bill

What is the recipe for your cooked milk icing?

We always make red cake for birthday cakes, because it is so festive. We use the vanilla, cooked milk icing but sometimes it breaks and we can't seem to make it come back together, other times it is fine. Not sure what we are doing differently. Any suggestions?

Marianne,
After trying many eggless chocolate recipes, I finally picked one and the bride and bridal party all enjoyed it. I on the other hand hated it! It was not as good as I am used to when using the Cake Bible recipes. I don't think I will agree to make that cake again. As far as a white or yellow eggless recipe goes, I gave up.
I'm done with trying to cater to those type of cakes.
Good Luck,
Lori V.

I was interested in Lori's comment about the vegan wedding cake. I, too, have been baking (and throwing away) countless white cake attempts for my vegan baking program. I have found several really good chocolate cake recipes that have no eggs or dairy, but a white/yellow cake that has the texture of its egg and milk counterpart has been elusive. They are usually wet, heavy, and more like a bad quick bread than a cake. Some of the recipes are not too awful if used as cupcakes, but a regular layer size is more like an eight inch hockey puck. Any suggestions?

Marianne

A & A - it depends on your frosting. If you frost with a traditional cream cheese frosting, then the answer would be yes.

Does red velvet cake require refrigeration?

Since red velvet is the cake I bake abysmally, a friend wants me to bake her daughter's wedding cake and of course it has to be red velvet. We also have an altitude problem, but I can deal with that. Any good recipes in large sizes?
CC

Just wanted to chime in that it is not actually Sara Moulton's recipe, it's Cakeman Raven's from when he guested on her show. It is his signature cake and he wears red pants and hat to underscore that. Some of my students have made the cake from this recipe and it comes quite close to the ones he passed out during the wedding cake competition we both joined in Las Vegas (we were next to one another and made New York jokes).
Lookng forward to doing a side-by-side comparison with Rose's Red velvet... A red velvet rose! How poetic, I can see the picture now.:D

Vreeke, I have made the Sara Moulton Red Velvet cake in many sizes, using Rose's leavening adjustment guidelines... My clients absolutely love it, but I'm waiting with bated breath until Rose lets us see her recipe!

I would actually not recommend converting the recipe to cake flour - it is incredibly moist (almost too moist, if there can be such a thing!) and tender...i think you'll be surprised - it's easy to forget there is AP flour in it. Also, be sure to bake it long enough, as I've found it sometimes requires a longer bake than the recipe indicates. I've also tweaked the flour & buttermilk amounts in various tests..

Curious to hear your results. Best of luck,

Jen N

The wedding for the Vegan cake is not until July and I'm not really looking forward to it. The bride & groom liked the taste but I thought it was terrible tasting. I guess it's just what you are used to. The suggestion I received from one of you about encouraging them to have the other tiers not eggless would have been great. I will definitely encourage that in the future.
Thanks for asking and I will report back after the wedding.
Lori V.
Pastries By Vreeke

Lori,
Can you tell us how your vegan cake turned out?

I am going to be making the Red Velvet Cake from Sara Moulton. Has anyone substituted Cake flour for the all-purpose flour? I like the finer texture especially for wedding cakes.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Lori V.
Pastries By Vreeke

Donna - have you thought about tinting Rose's white butter cake formula with red food coloring?

donna, forgive me but i can't publish it until the book comes out fall of 2008.

Hi.
Were you ever able to develop a recipe for red velvet? Is it published anywhere? I'm making a wedding cake in a few weeks and so far testing of different recipes haven't lived up to your recipes in the Cake Bible. I love the Cake Bible. I've used it so much the pages are starting to fall out.

Help, I am making a red velvet cake and I need a substitutefor red food coloring. asap

yes--temperature has a huge influence on flavor but also time can soften rough edges. red wine, for ex. becomes more bitter when cold whereas other substances become less so.

Update:I just had another piece of cake and the bitterness for the most part was gone! What happened? The other person who thought it was bitter last night also noticed the difference. Could it be that I put it in the fridge last night and the cold did something? Or maybe because it was a day old? I think tomorrow I'll have another piece, but let it sit a while before tasting it--maybe eating it cold tonight was a factor?

you've learned something really important here. people's level of bitterness perception is genetic. those who require sugar to make coffee taste right (me me) also find other food substances more bitter. in my upcoming book i'm giving a range of cocoa for this cake. the acidity especially of the vinegar really accentuates the bitterness.

Thanks for responding so fast! Yes, I used 3 tsp of cocoa in the red velvet cake. Other people were using 2-3 Tblsp and loved the cake. I don't understand. Maybe some people are more sensitive to that bitter taste than others. 2 out of 5 people that tasted my cake thought it was bitter. The other 3 didn't notice.

my guess is that you did the version with more than 1 teaspoon of cocoa and i also found that version had a bitter after-taste.

I've just baked my first red velvet cake. As I was assembling it I took a taste of some crumbs...the initial taste was good, however there was a bitter aftertaste. Is this how red velvet cakes are supposed to taste? I will try the complete cake tonight and see if it tastes better with the frosting.

i haven't officially posted/announced it yet because i am waiting for the publisher to sign the contract BUT it looks like a spanish version of the cake bible will be in the works shortly! thanks for asking.

Hi Rose!

Thanks a lot for your recipes! Now I'm the official cake-baker of my family!! hehehe
My question is if I can find your book "The Cake Bible" in Spanish. I find difficult to understand some technical words :(

Thanks for your answer!

i have been cajoled into developing a recipe for the red velvet. it's about to go into the oven. there is no substitute for red food color as beet, which works wonderfully with the acidic dough of bread becomes brownish in the essentially base cake batter.
so i'm creating my version of a red velvet using the red food color--really i don't in the end have a problem with it as long as there's more to the cake than the color and believe me there will be or i won't be including it in my next book. since everyone who has posted about it seems to adore the flavor and texture as well i'm sure i will too!
happy valentine's day all!!!!

Hi,
How about freshly squeezed beet juice?
Has anybody tried?

Thanks,
Rgds,
Anna