This is one of those cakes… you know, the ones that are reserved for really special occasions because it’s so *not* good for you! And I don’t just mean the food coloring *wink*

Background… the red color originally came from the reaction between cocoa powder and vinegar. And it does still make it somewhat red, but since dutch processed and more alkaline cocoas came on the market, it’s not as bright. What’s a home baker to do? Add food coloring to make it more red. Or add beets… but who wants to do that to chocolate?

I didn’t follow this exactly, because I ran out of food coloring. So I added some red gel coloring as well. It seems to have worked well.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter (OK, shortening if you have to)
• 1-1/2 cups evaporated cane juice (sugar)
• 2 eggs

• 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder – heaping
• 1-1/2 -2 oz. red food coloring

• 1 tsp. salt
• 2-1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk (or kefir)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter 2 9-inch or 3 8-inch cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper and butter it. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well.

Make a paste of the cocoa powder and food coloring. If you (like me) bought the small bottle of food coloring, either suffer through a less red cake, go buy another one, or add some gel coloring. Add this paste to the butter mixture.

Combine the salt and flour, and alternate it with the buttermilk and vanilla, making sure that it is well combined.

Sprinkle the baking soda over the vinegar – it will react. Pour this over the batter and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove to cool in the pans on racks. Loosen the sides if necessary, and, laying another rack on top of the pans, flip them over. Remove the pans and parchment paper and allow to completely cool.

The basic recipe calls for a cooked white frosting. Some people like a cream cheese frosting, some like whipped cream. I’m going to try putting a filling of cherries in a whipped cream frosting – sounds delish!

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I was using heart-shaped pans, so I ended up with a little bit of extra batter. So, I baked 2 4-inch round cakes, added a filling and frosted them. We will eat these tonight in honor of my dad’s birthday today. It seemed to take a bit longer to bake these… but eventually the toothpick came out clean. I think it was closer to 40-45 minutes. I’d check them at 25 minutes though, just to be safe!

Again, I combined a bunch of recipes. Most had the same basic ingredients, but some left out the vinegar. Some had more sugar or food coloring, or much less chocolate. I have had red velvet cake that was so dry you needed a glass of milk – I didn’t want that. This has a little less flour and I really heaped the cocoa powder (there’s probably close to 3.5 Tbsp. in these!) because I like chocolate. I know… shocking. I also added a touch more buttermilk for moistness. We’ll keep tweaking it I’m sure. After all, it IS chocolate.

Tags: cake, chocolate cake, red velvet cake

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