What makes a it a red velvet cake?

And why do southerners like them so much?

Growing up, I had a friend who hated chocolate. She hated chocolate, but loved red velvet cake, it was her favorite, it was what she had at her birthday every year. I’ve always been exactly the same, and so I remember, as a child, trying to convince her that if she liked red velvet cake then she liked chocolate cake, because red velvet cake is just chocolate cake with a bottle of red food coloring.

If she were to answer the question “what makes a red velvet cake” she’d say that what made red velvet cake red velvet cake was the color. It wasn’t the taste, it wasn’t the texture, it was the color: red. Red was her favorite color, red was her favorite cake.

I will say, my friend from back in the day had a point, the classic red velvet cake doesn’t have too terribly much cocoa powder in it, so in the end, she was vindicated. (Well, what is meant by classic is always up for debate, some people say that the “classic” is that you get a faint burgundy color from the reaction between cocoa and baking soda, but for everyone who hasn’t melted their brains the classic is the one that is red.)

I, growing up a southerner, of course love red velvet cake. I don’t ever make it, and I never really buy it, but, like, I do love it, I just can’t prove it. I dunno, it’s some sort of innate southernness, where, like, I see these perfect looking red velvet cakes, the ones that have pristine slices, and sometimes even three layers, and the thick frosting that’s mostly butter and not cream cheese, the kind that holds the ridges from the spreader, and sits 1/4 inch thick, and it just seems too perfect, too tasteful. They’re offputting, somehow.

Red velvet cake is probably one of the things every southerner can agree is “fancy.” It’s “elegant” for some reason. Everything about the way we think of it is so funny, and a bit discordant, because like, it isn’t elegant, it is a cake that uses two bottles of red food coloring. It doesn’t have some deep history in the south, and yet, it is southern food. I don’t know of a southerner who doesn’t have a soul deep feeling about red velvet cake. It’s so familiar.

I remember making red velvet cakes as a kid, and the frosting was always sliding off a bit, and the cakes were always a bit flat, and a bit dense, and totally imperfect. They were “fancy” because in Georgia a red velvet cake is a special occasion thing, but they weren’t “nice.” I don’t really know how to describe it. They were sort of relentlessly mediocre, and I loved that about them. I have no interest in “the best” red velvet cake, because I guess, fundamentally, I don’t think they should be that good. I don’t know if they can be that good.

I was making the beet cake from a few weeks ago to use up all the fucking beets that I had, and I had this feeling: it looks like a red velvet cake, but it isn’t one. It wasn’t the presence of beets that made it not red velvet cake to me (though that helps), it was the smell, or, the absence of a smell. I realized then that, to me, it isn’t a red velvet cake unless you add white vinegar to baking soda, and watch it fizz up. It isn’t red velvet cake without the hint of vinegar as you pour the batter out. I have a vivid memory of mixing baking soda and vinegar in the little bowls that we used for ice cream. I remember that smell, white vinegar and chocolate, but I have no memory of eating the cake, just the stains on my fingers, and the odor of vinegar as the cakes went into the oven. Looking online, very few recipes use that, and I can’t even find a recipe for red velvet cake in the edition of the Joy of Cooking I had growing up. What recipe was I following, and where did the white vinegar come in? I’m not sure, but I know that without that white vinegar it just isn’t the same.

Anyway, I’ve always thought that hidden veggie cakes were kinda bunk, because as I am always saying, cake is cake, it doesn’t need to be healthy. I don’t care about “natural sweeteners” or anything like that. … but… I have these fucking beets, man! I have so many beets! A whole bunch of beets! And I don’t like them. I’m sorry, but like, they do taste like dirt. Every beet recipe wants me to roast it, and I don’t want to make my house hot, or buy ingredients I don’t have, for a food that I think is bad. So I made the cake from another newsletter, and it was pretty good! Like, I would not, under any circumstances, suggest going out to buy beets in order to make it. I want that to be clear. It tastes, more or less, like a less oily wacky cake, so if they faint trace of oil that one of those leaves on your fingers is a problem, maybe you’d prefer this. Then again, a wacky cake uses one bowl, and this used two and also a vitamix. Is it worth it? You decide. If you want to sneakily feed beets to your husband, as recipe commenters assure me is a totally normal concern among heterosexual women, maybe this is for you.

But, my feelings about that cake aside, I only used half of my goddamn beets. It’s a pretty good cake, but christ alive! So I thought, well, I guess next time I’ll try to do a red velvet cake. Sort of like the ones I remember, but different, because at least it lets me use some of these motherfuckin beets.

So, that’s all to say, we’re doing a red velvet beet cake, not for any reason other than getting these gd beets out of the house. Caveat for this recipe: I have a vitamix. It might be hard to puree raw beets with a less aggressive blender. It is really important to me, however, not to cook the beets first, because, well, I don’t want to. It’s too much work. If your blender can’t handle raw beets, idk I guess steam them? Or like, use a different recipe? up to you.

These are cupcakes because I was having one vegan over for dinner, but still wanted to put cream cheese frosting on some of them. So. Also, uh, they don’t actually look red lmao. My insistence on having white vinegar and baking soda works against the beets, I guess. It tastes like a red velvet cake though, but with a beet aftertaste. Again, only make if you have a bunch of beets to use up. Otherwise why would you be putting beets into a cake? I’ve also noticed that beet cakes don’t last super well. You want to eat this within a couple days. The last piece of the one I made before grew mold! So my reccomendation for this recipe is: definitely make it if you have a lot of beets and no other way to use them, or are a straight woman whose man won’t eat fiber on his own(???)

Beet red velvet cake (vegan)

• 8 oz (1 cup) beets, pureed

• 1/3 cup oil (I used canola)

• 3/4 cup sugar (you could use slightly more if you like it a bit sweeter)

• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup oat milk (or other milk alternative)

• 1 1/2 cups flour

• 1/4 tsp fine salt

• 4 tbsp natural cocoa powder (a bit less would be more traditional)

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tbs white vinegar (none of that apple cider shit!)

Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake tin.

To puree the beets either cook them and then peel and blend them (booo) or peel and then finely slice the beets. Run through the blender. Then blend in the oil, sugar, and vanilla and milk. Pretty sure you can’t overblend at this point, so go ham.

In a large bowl whisk the flour, cocoa powder and salt and baking powder.

Add the baking soda and vinegar to a small bowl, watch them do their thing, ooh and aw at them, then add to the blender, pulse once or twice.

Gently fold the wet into the dry. Put into whatever your baking it in. Bake until done (just shy of 20 minutes, in this case.)

Lazy cream cheese frosting

• Roughly one stick of room temperature butter (we have used it for toast a few times, not exact amount)

• Half a cup of cream cheese (might well have been less, so what I did was, uh, I cut a clump out, and then ran the mixer and thought “no needs more cream cheese” and then added some more.)

• A little bit of vanilla extract (I poured a bit out of the bottle. not too much)

• A little bit of fine sea salt (I’d call it a pinch but I poured it into my hand. let’s say pinch)

• Enough powdered sugar

So, here, what you do is: you look up someone else’s recipe and use that. Otherwise, I just pulled things out, and mixed them together at will. It’s important that the balance of butter and cream cheese tastes good before you add the powdered sugar, but you want it to taste just ever so slightly too salty before the sugar goes in. Add sugar until you get the consistency and taste that you like. Any leftover can be stored in a small container in the freezer. This isn’t really for piping. In my opinion you shouldn’t pipe on a red velvet cake. Sorry! That’s just a little too, you know. I think the recipe from Divas Can Cook looks exactly how a red velvet cake should.