ISO Red Velvet Cake recipe

red-velvet-cake-slice, originally uploaded by food_in_mouth.

Can anyone recommend a recipe for bright red Red Velvet Cake?

Darcy requested an RVC for his birthday and I've never made one before.

Comments

[Chris O.]

I don't have a recipe, but my god that cake looks good. If someone gives you one, I may have to steal it as well.

[vox]

is today another day you will teach me something? I have made many deep red velvet cakes and to my memory i am thinking one of the ingredients made it that deeper almost turning toward brownish red ..
THIS cake is soo pretty. Am I to understand that we have a 'bright' as well as a regular absolutely, profoundly nothing else like it in the world red velvet cake?
I have to go search. Mine is written by hand somewhere in the kitchen. I will recognize it online, though. Time-consuming as compared to other cakes.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Oh boy, I'm excited already. Thanks voxy.

[vox]

This actually sounds pretty close However I remember it being more of an ordeal. (LOL)
when a person asks you for a red velvet cake they are VERY sure you love them. (happy birthday, darcy!!)
Here's a recipe for frosting AND the cake but I liked the ny times better for the cake itself.
Also, I read mention of, while searching, and definitely remember baking the layers and splitting them very carefully to make a four or more layer cake. I see the nytimes calling for three full layers. I really need to go home and get in the kitchen !
Also, I add some soft nuts to the frosting. Ground/chopped coarsely. At least on the top. YUM !!! Not mixed in .. just adorning.

[vox]

LOL ! Me too (excited) someone asked me for one not long back and then we bought a red cake in the grocery. I warned them it would be a BITTER disappointment. It was. Red velvet cakes (never heard them called red silk as the blogger did) must come from loving hands from one's kitchen.
That's the rulez.
I'm excited because OH YEAH i'm going to have one for darcy's birthday TOO. It's been TOO LONG. And, they're like heaven .... or canada. (LOL)

[cfrost]

I've never made one before.

What the hell? I've never seen, much less eaten, one before. I'm assuming it does not taste like paprika or cinnamon red-hot candy.

[vox]

cfrost, it honestly does taste like heaven or whatever your idea of paradise might be or whatever word you use ... i never used to like sweets and then lived for a short time with a lovely southern belle as my only real roommate in life. Five generations of southern belle descended on my life via her kitchen. YEAH BABY. I can make a strawberry shortcake that would make you melt. (and I'm purportedly a yankee but that was just on our way from brit >> canada >> there >> here/ I don't understand the whole northsouth angst but I DO know that southern women are king of red velvet cakes.

[voxy]

no matter what anyone says it HAS to be cream-cheese frosting. I've tried others. Nope.

[ChrisR]

I'm curious about how he landed on that particular request. I've never heard of red velvet cake. Then again, I just learned about ISO too...

[etaoing]

that's the one with two pounds of butter in it, right? my mom made that for a party when I was about five, and I was so sick afterwards that I could barely stand to look at that color for years...

[jack]

Lindsay, what's your deadline? I have any number in what has become to my surprise a massive collection of Southern cookbooks. I can scan / email you, but probably not before Monday; computer problems and my son's end of year chorus / band schedule are pretty pressing.

You've just crystallized what I want for MY 50th birthday in July, however.....

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Darcy's party's tonight.

[minstrel hussain boy]

red velvet cake from paula deen

[A White Bear]

I have the best recipe for RVC. No-fail, beautiful, excellent. It might be too late, but here it is (from James McNair):

2 1/4 c. cake flour
2 T. unsweetened cocoa
2 t. ground cinnamon
1 1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt

Sift the above together three times.

3/4 c. butter, room temp
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs, room temp
2 t. vanilla
2 oz. red food coloring
1 c. buttermilk or sour cream (full-fat), room temp

Beat the butter for 45 seconds, then beat in the sugar for five minutes. Beat in the eggs, then the vanilla and food coloring.

Fold in 1/3 of the dry mixture, then half the buttermilk or sour cream, then another third of the dry, then the rest of the buttermilk/sour cream, and then fold in the rest of the dry.

Bake in two lined round pans at 350F for 25 minutes. Cool, and frost with:

3/4 c. butter, room temp
6 c. powdered sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. buttermilk or sour cream
2 t. vanilla

Beat the butter with 1 c. of the sugar and the salt, adding half the buttermilk/sour cream. Beat in half of the remaining sugar, the rest of the buttermilk/sour cream, and then the rest of the sugar and the vanilla. Beat it for a few minutes over a double boiler so it melts and becomes totally smooth. Then chill it, and beat again before frosting.

[Ted Powell]

Here's another one from Paula Deen:
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipe_view/566
It's actually for Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, but with a bit of engineering, oops, culinary know-how I'm sure it could be adapted!

[Ted Powell]

P.S. Diana gets the credit for putting me onto Paula Deen.

[voxy]

I hope it's okay to wonder where swampcracker is. Maybe it's just me not always having time to read all the comments but I haven't seen him and I've missed him.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Me too.