Red Velvet Cake

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Red Velvet Cake from the Waldorf Astoria
Red velvet cup cake with whipped cream, blueberries and strawberries
Red Velvet Cupcake
Red Velvet Cheesecake

Red Velvet Cake ( Red Velvet Cake ), also called Mahogany Cake or Red Devil Cake , is a cake of the southern states in a light to dark red or red-brown color. The cake was particularly popular at the beginning of the 20th century; in recent years these cakes have been increasingly baked again in North America.

There is no standard recipe for this cake: Red Velvet Cake is usually a layered cake with chocolate flavor made with a creamy cast coated. Usually the cake is made from buttermilk , butter , flour , cocoa, and beetroot . The amount of cocoa varies in the various recipes, but some do not use it at all. The coating usually consists of either cream cheese or buttercream . The red-brown color of the cake is the result of a chemical reaction between the cocoa in the cake and acidic ingredients such as buttermilk. Even so, red food coloring is often added to intensify the effect, especially if the cake does not contain chocolate and is supposed to be bright red rather than red-brown.

history

New York's Waldorf Astoria served Red Velvet Cakes in the 1920s, one of the specialties the hotel was known for. The hotel is still seeing a demand for the cake so guests can order it in their room and at the hotel brasserie. The cake was so popular with American consumers that it was one of the first baking mixes to hit the market after the end of World War II. In the late 1940s, General Mills launched a Devil's Food Cake Mix under its Betty Crocker brand . According to the company legend, some customers were so repulsed by the use of the term Devil's that they wrote to the company asking them to change the name of the baking mix. Due to the popularity of the cake, General Mills insisted that Devil's Food Cake is still one of the best-selling baking mixes from the Betty Crocker brand.

In the standard work American Cookery , which first appeared in 1972, James Beard describes three different Red Velvet Cakes that differ in the quantities of ingredients processed. Like his mahogany cake, his Red Devil's Food Cake comes without food coloring. The use of sodium bicarbonate causes the reddish color here. Beard emphasizes in his recipe instructions that a larger amount of sodium bicarbonate leads to a more pronounced shade of red, but that this affects the taste. His mahogany cake recipe works in a similar way, but uses less milk and more molasses instead. His recipe for the cake, which he calls Red Velvet, calls for the use of red food coloring in addition to using buttermilk and vinegar. Beard emphasizes that by using vanilla and cinnamon he deliberately deviates a little from the traditional ingredients, because with these a cake of very good consistency can be achieved, but the cake lacks a distinctive flavor.

Usually it is the use of vinegar and buttermilk that brings out the red of the anthocyanin contained in cocoa . However, before the basic "Holland cocoa" was available to the general public, food coloring was mostly used. The natural coloring may be responsible for the alternative names Red Velvet (red velvet) and Devil's Food (devil's dish). During World War II , when food was being rationed, pastry chefs began to use beetroot to improve the color of the cake. Cooked beetroot can still be found in some recipes to this day and is also used to keep the cake moist.

In Canada , the cake was a known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton - department store chain during the 40s and 50s . Distributed as a special Eaton recipe, about which the employees remained silent, the belief arose that the cake was an invention of the department store matriarch Lady Eaton.

Increasing popularity

The cake also owes its revived popularity to the 1989 film Magnolias made of steel , in which it is baked in the shape of an armadillo . Some bakeries, which particularly emphasize their attachment to southern cuisine, have made Red Velvet products their specialty. The Magnolia Bakery whose short scenic appearance in an episode of the US series Sex and the City as a triggering element for the currently very high popularity of cupcakes applies also sells cakes in this flavor. Magnolia Bakery is considered to be one of the first bakeries that made a conscious decision to offer this cake to its customers. Of the 10,000 cupcakes the Georgetown Cupcake Bakery sells every day, Red Velvet cupcakes are the most popular.

literature

  • David Sax: The Tastemakers - Why we're Crazy for Cupcakes But Fed Up With Fondue . PublicAffairs 2014, ISBN 978-1-61039-316-4 .

Web links

Commons : Red velvet cakes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Florence Fabricant: So Naughty, So Nice . In: The New York Times , January 14, 2007. 
  2. ↑ James Beard : James Beard's American Cookery . Little, Brown, Boston 1972.
  3. ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8166-5018-7 . P. 166
  4. ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8166-5018-7 . P. 167
  5. ↑ James Beard : James Beard's American Cookery . Little, Brown, Boston 1972.
  6. ↑ Suzanne Scott: It's All Mixed Up! The History and True Facts About Baking Devil's Food Cake . New Jersey Baker's Board of Trade. June 7, 2003. Archived from the original on August 5, 2004. Retrieved October 10, 2004.
  7. ↑ Carol Anderson, Katharine Mallinson: Lunch with Lady Eaton: Inside the Dining Rooms of a Nation . ECW Press , Toronto 2004, ISBN 1-55022-650-9 .
  8. ↑ David Sax: The Tastemakers , introduction
  9. ↑ Cindy Clark: 'DC Cupcakes': Washington's purveyors of power pastry , USA Today. July 15, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2015.