Name: Rose Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients: cake flour; pure vanilla extract; red food color; superfine sugar; bleached all-purpose flour; baking powder; unsweetened cocoa powder; salt; safflower oil; canola; low-fat buttermilk; unsalted butter; egg whites

Rose Levy Beranbaum

Rose Red Velvet Cake

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium
Serves:
8 to 10

Appears in

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

By Rose Levy Beranbaum

Published 2009

About
Recipes
contents

Baking Time: 25 to 35 minutes

I long resisted the charms of this cake, believing it to be merely a layer cake tinted red with a bottle of food coloring. But when several people on my blog sang its praises, I decided to investigate it more thoroughly. It turns out that there is more to this cake than its shocking color. This beloved southern cake is traditionally prepared with oil, a mere suspicion of cocoa, and a teaspoon of white vinegar, which raises the acidity of the batter and intensifies its color. The liquid component is usually buttermilk, which is thought to raise the acidity as well, although the baking soda normally used neutralizes most of the acidity and makes the crumb more coarse and the color darker.

So, when I created my version of this classic, I used only baking powder to employ the full acidity of the buttermilk, making vinegar unnecessary. I also used half oil and half butter for the flavor-enhancing qualities of butter and the moist, softening quality of the oil. The resulting cake is as flavorful and tender as you can hope for and stays soft enough to eat even straight from the fridge. A heart-shape pan is perfect for Valentine’s Day. And the contrast of the white chocolate cream cheese buttercream against the red cake is alluring.

Batter

	Volume	Ounce	Gram
3 large egg whites, at room temperature	¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 fluid ounces)	3.2	90
red food color (1 bottle); see Notes	2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce)	1	30
pure vanilla extract	1½ teaspoons	.	.
cake flour (or bleached all-purpose flour)	2 cups (or 1¾ cups), sifted into the cup and leveled off	7	200
superfine sugar	1 cup	7	200
baking powder	3 teaspoons	.	.
unsweetened cocoa powder (see Notes)	1 teaspoon	.	.
salt	½ teaspoon	.	.
canola or safflower oil, at room temperature	¼ cup (2 fluid ounces)	2	58
unsalted butter (65° to 75°F/19° to 23°C)	4 tablespoons (½ stick)	2	57
low-fat buttermilk	½ cup (4 fluid ounces)	4.2	121

Special Equipment

One 9 by 2-inch heart-shape or round cake pan (8 to 8 ⅔ cups), encircled with a cake strip, bottom coated with shortening, topped with parchment cut to shape, then coated with baking spray with flour

Cake
Dessert
Vegetarian

Method

Preheat the Oven

Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C.

Mix the Liquid Ingredients

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites, red food color, and vanilla just until lightly combined. (Caution: Be careful with the red food color: it stains effectively, but also unmercifully.)

Mix the Dry Ingredients

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa, and salt.

Make the Batter

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the flat beater, mix the oil and butter on medium speed for 1 minute. It will not be completely smooth. (Before measuring or weighing the buttermilk, shake the container to mix it thoroughly.) Add the flour mixture and buttermilk. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Raise the speed to medium and beat for 1½ minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Starting on medium-low speed, gradually add the egg mixture to the batter in two parts, beating on medium speed for 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the structure. Using a silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface evenly with a small offset spatula.

Bake the Cake

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the wire cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven.

Cool and Unmold the Cake

Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a small metal spatula between the sides of the pan and the cake, pressing firmly against the pan, and invert the cake onto a wire rack that has been coated lightly with nonstick cooking spray. To prevent splitting, reinvert the cake so that the top side is up. Cool completely.

Make the Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting

See recipe.

Compose the Cake

When the cake is completely cool, set it on a serving plate. Frost the top with swirls of buttercream.

Notes

Some people have a problem with the idea of using red food color and use beet juice in its place. In recipes using baking soda, the beet juice would turn brown, but with this highly acidic batter, the crumb will stay red, though not as pretty a red as offered by the food color. The best way to harvest beet juice is to roast the well-washed beets in their skins, leaving an inch of root and stems, in an aluminum foil package at 350°/175°C for about 45 minutes for medium beets, up to about 1 hour and 15 minutes for large ones. Remove the beets and use the foil to pour the beet juice into a small container.

For a distinct chocolate flavor, you can use up to ¼ cup cocoa/0.7 ounce/21 grams, sifted before measuring, but decrease the flour by the same amount. The color will be a much darker red.

In this section

Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting