♥ Be-Love series: Red Velvet cake ♥

Hello!! I was so busy last few weeks, I'm moving out, so many things to pack... and I couldn't finish my Be-Love Series, so here it is.
Baking a cake or a heart shaped one for Valentine's Day is something usual. Anyway this was my first experience in 'romance bakery' and The experiment called : Red Velvet cake, an American typical dessert.

Tea&Love

Vintage ad 'I feel a kiss coming on!'

On my previous post, I showed a vintage makeup brand whose one of its star products, was a cream blush for instant rosy cheeks and lips. Red is blood, Red is tempting, even in cakes.

Funny retro ad

A Red Velvet Cake is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color. It's traditionally prepared as a layer cake topped with cream cheese. Nowadays the reddish colour is achieved by adding red food coloring. This cake is well-known in United States and Canada. However, it's widely considered a Southern recipe.

The Red Velvet cake is confused on its origins. Because the ingredients were expensive to buy, cake itself was considered to be a rich man's food in early America. After the American Industrial Revolution took place between late 18th century and mid 19th century, baking ingredients were easier to come by and made more affordable for the common folk. At that time, cake became more of a common dessert rather than a delicacy afforded only by the well-to-do. 

In fact, in the 1920's a story and a recipe began circulating around America, about a cake that was served at the restaurant in New York's Waldorf Astoria. The legend says there was a woman who was staying at the hotel, she loved the caked and she had sampled there so much that she wrote to the hotel, asking for the baker's name and a copy of the recipe. The recipe arrived in the mail alongside a rather large bill. As soon as she saw the excessive bill, the woman was so furious that's why she copied the recipe and sent it to everyone she knew. 

The main ingredient, most Southerners won't do without in their homemade recipes, is cocoa. Many believe the additional ingredients of vinegar and buttermilk will turn the cocoa into a deeper red color due to a chemical reaction. During World War II, some bakers who refused to forgo the cake's signature color despite food rations, used boiled red beets instead of food coloring for their secret recipes.

On the other hand, other people believe its name, red velvet, is because of bakers used to add some brown sugar and its colour was never red. Then food colorings came along. John A. Adams had a fairly prosperous extract business until the Great Depression. His company then started setting up displays to drive business…of course the picture was of a bright Red Velvet cake. With purchase of his red food coloring came the Red Velvet Cake recipe :)

I've followed next recipe and demonstration from Joy of Baking.com

My Red Velvet Cake

My Red Velvet cake

Three layers red velvet cake:)

A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the late 80's film Steel Magnolias in which the groom's cake (a southern tradition) for one of the film's main character, is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo.

Have you ever made a Red Velvet cake?

Would you like to make it?

Love,

♡Lorena Be-Bop♡