Dying to be Red

It is like, "What is black and white and read (red) all over?" Well, we all know that is a newspaper. What is a deeply dyed layer cake called "Red Velvet" and why do people think it is heavenly? I don't really have the answer to that one although I think it is a real riddle.

I have tasted it once or twice but was more blown away by the deep red colour and turned off by the chemical dyes that made it that way.  To me it was just a chocolate cake with red dye in it.  Now, to all those Red Velvet lovers, don't get your shirt in a knot.  It is just my opinion.

My friend, David, asked me to write a blog about Red Velvet Cake.  At the time, I told him I didn't know a lot about it.  I had had cupcakes that were Red Velvet from EAT MY WORDS and I watched a TV food show like Paula Deen making it.  Sure it was tasty but what is the red dye?  How good is that to eat?  We are forever told that red dye # something was carcinogenic.  Even when I see cakes where the icing is too brightly coloured, I immediately think of carcinogens.

Now, David loves chocolate cake but hates Red Velvet Cake.  I was thinking what was the difference with the exception of the horrific bright red dye.  Maybe it is the cream cheese frosting that David doesn't like.  After all, he doesn't like carrot cake and that has cream cheese frosting.  Well it appears that most of the recipes floating around now aren't really the original Red Velvet Cake.  The cream cheese frosting is a contemporary twist to it.  Traditional and true Southerners don't like it either.  The original cake was very dense as well like a carrot cake.

The original frosting on RVC is an odd old frosting that uses a cooked base of flour and milk beaten with butter and sugar, sometimes called "gravy icing".  The cream cheese frosting came from the movie Steel Magnolias in about 1989.  And when carrot cake became a favourite in the US, the cream cheese frosting spread into use for other cakes as well.  Since it's in common use now, they have seemed to have forgotten the original. 

Now, I have read so much about it, I think I am going to throw up.  There was one response on a blog that had this X-rated visual symbolism... Cutting (with a long, pointy, phallic symbol) a big triangle (delta of Venus) into the virginal, white, fluffy exterior (like a bridal gown!) "exposing" all that shocking, secret, hidden cherry-red sensuousness on in the inside.  Now, David, read this one to your wife.   Then, he goes on to say, just like in real life, when you finally DO IT.... consume IT... it is a BIG LET DOWN....  So, in boring old reality red velvet cake tastes BLAH.  His guess is that RVC was invented during the Great Depression when quality ingredients were too expensive for most folks.

Like other people, I don't really get RVC.  Does the colouring add anything to the taste?  And if  you didn't have red colouring on hand, why not substitute blue or purple?  It would really taste the same since food colouring doesn't taste like anything.


Red Velvet Cake is arguably the hottest cake flavour out there and yet I haven't read a helluva lot of people that actually like it.  So David, you are not alone.  Stick to your chocolate cake.  I still think there are more people that prefer that to Red Velvet Cake.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, no chocolate cake for Gina.  I am on "shutdown" as my son, Rob says.  Too many calories that I just don't need.