Red Velvet Cake, One of the most popular premium Cake, that is loved by almost everyone, thought to originate in the Victorian era. During that era, they served velvet cakes as a fancy dessert. The term “velvet” was a description used to let consumers know the dessert was a soft and velvety crumb cake.
But Why Red Velvet Cake? — Why people are so fond of this cake? — Well this is just a cake, with red food coloring right? — What so special about it …. ( these are some of the most common questions, that generally arise in people )
Well, You ever hear that saying “You eat with your eyes first”?
Visual stimuli have some influence on the taste of your food. Color can, to a degree, change the subjective experience of taste. Red, in the context, is a color of indulgence and luxury and the color, combined with the name red velvet sets up a subjective expectation. Presentation isn’t everything, but it’s an important thing.
Also, Red Velvet Cake is just not any ordinary cake, with red food coloring. For starters, it’s so named for having a velvet (ie, smooth) texture. Secondly it’s rich and chocolatey, and very buttery and moist compared to plain chocolate cake.
While some people think the Red Velvet comes from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the 1920s, it is actually a product from the Great Depression. It was a marketing ploy from Adams Extract, a food coloring company.
Before this scheme, red velvet was made with cocoa powder, buttermilk and vinegar. It’s the chemical reaction between the cocoa powder (which contains anthocyanin, a pH-sensitive antioxidant that reacts to acids) and the vinegar and buttermilk. This reaction makes the cake its famous red-tinted color.
Adams’ purpose, however, was to sell more food coloring, so their recipe included a lot of red coloring. This transformed the traditional deep maroon color into the bright red that we know today.
Now moving on to the Interesting facts part : –
1.The red velvet cake is a red cake, of an unbelievably smooth and velvety texture!
2. It is usually combined with a cream cheese frosting.
3. Red velvet cake was not originally made with food coloring!
4. Red velvet cake was given it’s amazing maroon/red color by the chemical reaction of some basic ingredients.
5. The responsible ingredients for the cake’s color were: non-Dutch processed strong cocoa, vinegar and buttermilk! This super combination resulted a firm, smooth, deep red-brown texture. A moist cake.
6. If you want your cake to turn out naturally red and velvety avoid food coloring! When foods were rationed during World War II, bakers used boiled beet juices to enhance the color of their cakes.
7. Creating a super tasty red velvet cake you should not miss adding to your recipe: unsalted real butter, eggs, vanilla extract, sugar, buttermilk, vegetable oil, white vinegar, cake or plane flour, salt, baking soda, and of course non-Dutch processed cocoa powder!
8. As mentioned earlier, the original red velvet cake did not contain any food coloring, as it was actually discovered during the Great Depression Period, where depression and poverty was reaching every single place on earth, and food coloring was to be avoided as an unnecessary expense.
9. This beautiful treat can be also found in a cupcake form! Yummy!!!
10. Velvet Cakes had been made since 1800s, but the Red Velvet Cake’s true origins aren’t completely known.
11. The first nationalized mention of the Red Velvet Cake happened in Irma S. Rombauers’ book “The Joy Of Cooking” in 1943!
12. It is said that the creation of this cake first took place in Adams Extract Company, when they first put some red color in this explosion of taste (1920).
13. It is also claimed by the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, that this hotel was the birthplace of the cake as it was a famous menu item in 1950s!
14. Nowadays, food coloring is preferred in the United States because there is hardly any non-Dutch processed cocoa there. Dutch processed cocoa has a weaker color and definitely does not react with buttermilk the same way non-Dutch cocoa does. Result: a non-red color.
15. The red velvet cake has become extremely popular over the last years.
16. Pay attention on how to bake your cake, because harsh baking might have a risk of losing the intensity of the color and the moisture of the texture.
17. Apart from cream cheese frosting, you can alternatively make a buttercream, or even Ermine frosting!
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