Red Velvet Cake (Monica’s All-Natural)

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Beeville, TX. Not far from Normanna, Orangedale and Skidmore, it’s the Bee County seat, built around a typical Texas town square with an enormous Renaissance Revival courthouse at the center. It’s not like there’s a plaque or anything, but ask around, and you may find old timers who know the town’s connection to America’s long-lingering flavor obsession: Red Velvet. Yep. When chemist John A. Adams pulled up stakes in Michigan to move his family in 1905, this was where he landed, launching the eponymous food-coloring and additives firm in Austin that truly put the “Red” in Red Velvet.

Adams didn’t envision a day when Red Velvet would wiggle its way into everything from latte’s and doughnuts, to vodka and candles, but wow, what testament to pure marketing moxie! Faced with a Depression-era slump in business at Adams Extract Company,  Adams dreamed up the idea of adding two, full, half-ounce bottles of red food coloring, plus another bottle of butter extract, to what was then the typical “mahogany” or “devils food” chocolate cake recipe. He marketed the hell out of it, putting pretty pictures of the really-red cake on store displays of his extracts, with the somehow-winning tagline, “The Cake of a Wife Time.” Because the combo offered a cheap substitute to butter & possibly lured by the luxury-look of that rich red, people bought it.

Being a recipe-revival junkie, I spoke to my friend Addie Broyles, a writer for the Austin American Statesman, to find out more. Turns out Addie  did a great story on Adams Extract when the company celebrated its 125th anniversary, including the “original” Adams family recipe.  But here’s the thing: That word “original”…. It tempted the recipe developer in me to go just a little further.

Here’s what I learned: Doing a story on red velvet cakes for the New York Times, writer Kim Severson tracked down the archivist for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC, who was able to document that the hotel originated its version of red velvet cake in the ‘30s. Severson also got Sterling Crim,  (managing partner and chief marketing officer for the Adams Extract Company) on record saying that the Adams dye-and-extract doctored version of red velvet started with their exposure to the Waldorf cake.

The Waldorf red velvet, like other “Red Devils Food,” “Devils Food” and “Mahogany” cakes in my oldest baking books, were all chocolate cakes that took on various shades of reddish hue due to naturally occurring reactions between key ingredients in the cakes. All of these cakes included acid—usually buttermilk or soured milk, and baking soda, which when combined bubble up and lighten the texture of the cake. Also, prior to the Depression, cocoa powders on the market hadn’t had the red-hued, acid-containing anthocyanins processed out of them—a process now known as “Dutch processed.”

Sooooo….before cocoas were Dutch processed, chocolate cakes made with buttermilk/soured milk, baking soda and natural cocoa powder took on a truly a lovely “mahogany” or “devil”-ish hue, and, had a very moist, tender, velvet crumb.  The method used for many of these cakes—also the method I use for my beloved chocolate fudge cake—was to cream the fat, sugar and eggs, whisk the cocoa powder with hot liquid, add the baking soda (which bubbles up nicely) and then the flour.

My version of red velvet cake is built on these old-fashioned, tried and true steps. I have consciously chosen NOT to include food coloring. Bottled red food coloring may be deemed safe for human consumption, but the fact that it is either synthetic (made from petroleum distillates or coal tar sludge (!) or made from crushed female cochineal bugs (labeled as carmine, cochineal extract or natural red 4) made the idea of introducing any of this to a cake really unappealing. I did use natural, un-Dutched cocoa powder which you can find at The Spice House in Chicago, or natural food stores. And, to enhance the red just a bit, I include a small quantity of deep-red, greatly reduced beet juice in my recipe. Also, this recipe does not include vinegar because un-Dutched cocoa is  more acidic than Dutch-processed, and enough acid is enough acid. For the frosting, I am featuring a recipe for a very simple “boiled icing” which lends a satin-sheeny bright white finish to the cake. You will need to make two batches of this frosting to completely fill and frost the cake.

While I didn’t get this to you in time for Valentine’s Day, 2018, this cake will do very nicely for Presidents Day, when we can tribute our past favorites (Lincoln! Obama!).  In fact (one more bit of histo-trivia:) President Eisenhower’s favorite “Ike Cake” was actually a chocolate velvet.