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Thanks to its beautiful red hue, the red velvet cake is a festive favorite for the celebrations all year round. The dramatic shadow adds a dose of color to the table and biting in its creamy cream cheese icing creates a sweet treatment that no one can withstand. But what exactly does the red velvet cake different from a chocolate? And why is it even red? TheChocolateThe history of the cake -ish is as rich as thedessert And there are several layers to her. Here is the skinny on the red velvet cake and especially: why is the red velvet cake red?

The red velvet cake has roots at the Victorian era.

Apparently, the red velvet cake has not always been red, saysMelissa Walnockexecutive pastry chef and instructor atThe Culinary Institute of Coffee Bakery Apple of American Apple, a restaurant / public coffee which is also a classroom for the majors of cooking and college pastry. It just started like "velvet cake".

"The velvet cake would have been originally from the Victorian age and was considered a fancy dessert," says Walnock. "The velvet in the name was destined to describe the texture of the cake."

Apparently, the cooks have discovered that the addition of almond flour, cornstarch or cocoa to the cake mix would soften the protein in the flour, which resulted in a cake with a fiddling texture that cakes entirely made to the regular flour, according toThe New York Times. So, cocoa was not really used in these recipes to make a chocolate cake; It was actually used as aingredient to change the texture.

How and why does the velvet cake finish red?

At the time the velvet cake was going on, the black chocolate food cake was also on the rise. According to the pastry chefStella Parks, author of the cookbook,Bravetart: emblematic American dessertsIt was in the early 1900s that the combination of these two recipes created the "velvet cocoa cake".

The recipe has increased in popularity during the era of depression because it has called a low-priced raw cocoa powder instead of chocolate bars (which were more expensive as they are made with cocoa butter, solids. cocoa and sugar). Finally, like the Velvet cocoa recipe was heading for the southern states, Buttermilk was added to the list of ingredients. Once the buttermilk has been used in the recipe, something interesting began to happen.

The combination of acidic lumberboard and raw cocoa powder with a neutralizing oven soda has succeeded a chemical reaction that triggered the natural reddish colors of cocoa. So no, the cake was not a super bright red that most people do today thanks to food staining, but it was more of a nuance of red brownish than the dark brown and deep a cake Regular chocolate.

However, it was the Adams extraction company on Texas which is credited to bring the red velvet cake that you know and love true popularity. The company sold excerpts from food dyes and flavors and it was among the first to introduce heartless recipe cards to encourage the use of their products.

The legend has that after the business owners ate a velvet cake at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, they were inspired to reproduce the recipe using their own products. It was in the 1940s that Adams extract from printing aRed velvet cake recipe, who was a velvet cocoa cake with food staining, and he took off.

So, what makes a red velvet cake different from a chocolate cake?

"It's not necessarily a cake with chocolate lovers, it's a cake with red lovers," says Kaija Knorr, private chef on Nantucket, Massachusetts and owner ofCook in the cottage. "It's a pony of a trick, if you wanted an incredible flavor of chocolate, you would go for a chocolate cake death or similar cake."

Although red velvet cake recipes call for cocoa powder, the cake is far from chocolate cake. The red velvet cake has a clearer chocolate flavor than the chocolate cake because it uses a few tablespoons of cocoa powder instead of scented chocolate bars.

In addition, the red cake generally includes acidic ingredients-Buttermilk or vinegar-Quique thing you can not find in a standard chocolate cake.

And most obviously, the red velvet cake is not brown like a rich chocolate cake is. As a rule, a red velvet cake is garnished with cream cheese glaceing rather than chocolate icing, says Knorr, so the most obvious difference between desserts next to the color .

The red velvet cake now.

If you are looking to replicate the original red velvet cake without Red Food Dye, you will have to make a special trip to the grocery store. While the original recipe (pre-Adams extract) used raw cocoa powder, most cocoa powders sold now are "alkalized" or "damage". It means that they are going through achemical process This decreases their acidity and also decreases their antioxidant levels. Without these antioxidants with reddish search, you will not get the same red color of the original recipe. You will want to seek a raw powder, cocoa (which is different from the "cocoa" powder in that it is not grilled), likeNavitas Organics.

Another way of fesire the dye? Remember to use another unexpected ingredient:beets.

"Some people now use red beet juice as a natural color in place of red dye due to the side effects of red dye health," says Knorr. "The color of the cake is more a purple hue if you use the beet juice vs the red dye." Knorr prefers to add roasted beets to its red velvet cake recipe because beets add the color, as well as moisture.

"Maybe not so light or soft and slightly dense, but you still get this beautiful flavor of chocolate and a very humid cake," she said. And that's all that really matters, right?