Red Velvet Cake Made With Beets & Unsweetened Baking Chocolate

Famous for its moist, sweet, red-colored cake topped with a contrasting creamy white frosting, Red Velvet cake was once featured as the signature cake of New York City's Waldorf-Astoria. The origins of Red Velvet cake are debatable, as is the manner in which the cake traditionally got its namesake coloring. While some people believe that the red coloring comes from the chemical reaction that occurs when the acidic vinegar and buttermilk are combined with baking soda, others believe that the hue originated with the use of beets as the coloring agent.

Conventional Ingredients

Sugar balances out the bitterness of unsweetened chocolate.

Conventional Red Velvet cake recipes, such as one featured by Martha Stewart, usually call for a combination of ingredients such as flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, salt, oil, eggs, vanilla, milk, baking soda, vinegar, baking powder and red food coloring.

Unsweetened Baking Chocolate

Unsweetened baking chocolate adds a rich chocolate taste to baked goods

Red Velvet cake traditionally has a very subtle chocolate taste, which can be achieved by adding a small amount of melted unsweetened baking chocolate or unsweetened cocoa powder.

Combining Ingredients

Beets have a rich, red color.

Modern-day Red Velvet cake recipes call for large amounts of red food coloring in order to achieve the distinctive color that makes it famous. However, during the sugar rationing of World War II, the addition of beets increased in popularity. Many pastry chefs swear that adding beets will not only help to achieve the perfect red coloring, but will also boost the nutritional value of your cake.

References

• Betty Crocker: Red Velvet Cake
• The New York Times: So Naughty, So Nice
• Martha Stewart Weddings: Red Velvet Cake

Resources

• The View: Veggies as Dessert