One of my favorite treats over the years is Red Velvet cake. When I go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart I’ve often seen it in the form of a dark red Twinky like cream filled pastry treats. Yesterday as I headed down the baking aisle, my eye caught sight of a cake mix I hadn’t seen before. Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Red Velvet cake mix. This I had to try, in the basket, with a container of cream cheese frosting and home I went. Looking forward to a tasty treat.
Rumors abound that Red Velvet cakes originated at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. In reality there is no evidence to substantiate this story, history instead tells us that they most likely originated as a southern tradition and had more to do with the reaction of vinegar and buttermilk turning the chocolate to a reddish hew. I used Wikipedia as the source of this information.
Some say Red Velvet is nothing more then adding a bunch of red food coloring to a devils food cake. I was about to see for myself, as baking that cake was a top priority.
The mix is pretty standard as far as cake mixes go. Add 3 eggs 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, and 1-1/4 cups of water. Immediately upon adding anything in the way of moisture, the pale brown powder became a instant dark red. Beating it as instructed for 2 minutes just made the red deepen and get richer.
Pouring it into a 9×13 pan and off into the oven it went. I did notice that anywhere the batter got on my hands immediately took on the color of the batter. Washing my hands after the pan went into the oven left red dye still prominent around my finger nails and any creases in my hand. Watch out for spillage, or spraying, this dye will color anything it touches.
In 32 minutes it was done, slightly pulling away from the edges of the pan and a toothpick came out clean of batter. The toothpick did come out the red color of the cake, there sure is a lot of dye in this cake.
After if cooled completely it was time for Cream Cheese frosting. It was a whipped frosting out of the can, and it went on perfectly. No sooner was the cake finished then out the knife came. Anticipation was great, it was time for the taste test.
Red Velvet cakes that I’ve had in the past have always been supper moist, this one didn’t quite hit the mark. I won’t say it’s dry, but the picture on the package indicates a much higher level of moisture then was experienced. I did find the cake to be light and airy so overall a 1-10 rating for texture I will give it a 8. Quite acceptable.
Flavor, or taste being the next criteria. The dry mix looked to have plenty of chocolate. The ingredients list coco powder about half way through the list, indicating there is indeed some in the mix. Eating a piece of cake with frosting, I couldn’t detect any chocolate flavor at all. To be fair, I went back hours later and tried a bite of cake without any frosting to mask the flavor. Yes indeed there is a subtle chocolate taste to the cake. Definitely not as strong as would be found in a Devil’s food cake, more like what you would find in a German Chocolate cake. The flavor rates a 9 on my scale.
The one area of concern with the cake is the level of dye and how easily it transfers to anything it contacts. I noticed it immediately died my tongue a bright red, and the coloring lasted a number of hours. The coloring is red dye #40 and is approved for consumption, but yet the quantity needed to so deeply color a cake may be a concern.
Over all the cake was quite satisfactory for a product costing less then $1. Not as good as home made, but an acceptable alternative that’s a lot less trouble to make.
