Red Velvet Cake

With an enticing ruby-colored crumb, a flavor that isn't quite vanilla but isn't quite chocolate, a smooth coating of cream cheese icing, it's no surprise that red velvet cake is a favorite of many, myself included. Please allow me a moment of your time to gush about this delightful dessert.

(Image Credit: https://glutenfreecuppatea.co.uk/2017/08/24/gluten-free-red-velvet-cake-recipe-dairy-free-low-fodmap/ )

An Incredibly Versatile Concept

It seems that every area of baking has tried their own hand at red velvet. Besides cake, there's red velvet cupcakes, red velvet cookies, red velvet brownies, I think I even made red velvet pancakes once. Stash, a brand of tea, also has its own red velvet tea (I've tried it, I suppose it tastes as much like red velvet as a tea possibly can...?)

What gives the cake its unique flavor is the combination of buttermilk and just a bit of cocoa powder, not enough to make turn it into a chocolate cake, but just enough to give it a hint of chocolate flavor. These ingredients are also easily incorporated into other baked goods, so it makes sense that the recipes would be expanded to more than just cake.

What About That Red Color?

Nowadays most red velvet cakes have food coloring incorporated into the batter, and sometimes you have to use a lot, otherwise the cake will end up looking more brown than red. If you aren't too keen ingesting that much food coloring, fear not, the recipe originally included beet juice, which dyed the batter red. This is a less common version of the recipe and I've never tried it (I really do want to, someday), but there are plenty of recreations of the beet juice red velvet cake recipe that one can find online, if you're interested.

I find myself having not much left to say about this cake, other than it's a favorite of mine and many others, and as I suspected, I now seem to be craving some.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you learned something!