by Patricia Mitchell
From time to time I have been asked to provide a recipe for Red Velvet Cake. I had not
baked one for years. And a search of my considerable cookbook library revealed
not one single recipe for Red Velvet Cake. So I implemented an Internet search which yielded
an astonishing number of recipes for this colorful creation. The same search
turned up the bogus but persistent Neiman Marcus cookie hoax which, in one form or another,
I had been hearing for years, up to and including an email I received recently.
There is a connection.
Despite the dozens of recipes I found, there were many variations among them. So armed with
the mountain of sometimes conflicting information that only the Internet can provide, I went
to my kitchen and got out the mixer.
The origin of Red Velvet Cake goes back to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
This cake has been a popular favorite for years especially, but not exclusively, in the
Southern states. If you
saw "Steel Magnolias,"
you may recall mention of the armadillo groom's cake with the blood-red interior. That could
only be a Red Velvet Cake.
Actually, Red Velvet Cake is a beautifully textured cake with a mild chocolate flavor that just happens to be startlingly
red. In order to mask its color before the cake is cut and enhance its redness once it is, Red Velvet Cake is
traditionally complemented with a thick, very white frosting.
The three test cakes I made resulted in the following first-hand knowledge and, in my
opinion at least, best recipe for this cake:
Red Velvet Cake
- 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 2 1-ounce bottles of red food coloring (equivalent measure is 1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons)
- 1/2 cup Crisco or other vegetable shortening
- 1-1/2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans.
Combine the sifted flour and salt, and set aside.
Put the cocoa in a small glass bowl, and add the food coloring gradually, stirring until
mixture is smooth. Set aside.
Cream together the shortening and sugar, beating for 4 or 5 minutes at medium speed in
your electric mixer until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for at least 30
seconds after each addition.
At low speed of your mixer, add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture alternately with the
buttermilk and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the
cocoa/food coloring mixture, mixing until color of batter is uniform. Do not overbeat;
overbeaten cake batter will result in a tough cake. Turn off your mixer.
In a small bowl, mix the vinegar with the baking soda. It will foam up. Stir it briefly to
mix, and then add it to the cake batter, folding it in to incorporate well, but do
not beat.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans, and bake in a 350°F oven for 25 to
30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow layers to cool on a rack for 10
minutes before turning out. Let cake cool completely before frosting.
Red Velvet Cake Tips
- Don't be tempted to shorten the shortening/sugar creaming time. Cake texture will
be far better, and you can mix up your cocoa and food coloring while the mixer is running.
- Mixing the cocoa with the food coloring is the best way to get uniform color in the cake. On
my first test cake, I sifted the cocoa together with the flour, twice, and still came up
with little cocoa-colored whorls in the finished cake.
- Yes, red food coloring does stain, so use glass utensils rather than plastic. And
be careful.
- The recipes I found on the Internet came up about fifty/fifty as far as the amount
of red food coloring they called for -- some with one ounce, the rest with two ounces. Let
me just say this: The cake with one ounce of food coloring was a very dark pink. The cake
with two ounces (1/4 cup, or 4 tablespoons) was RED.
- The recipes also varied on the amount of vinegar with some calling for as much
as one tablespoon. I found that one teaspoon works just fine. And white vinegar with its
less pungent odor is definitely preferable to apple cider vinegar.
- Most recipes stated that this recipe was suitable for three 8-inch layers and one
9x13-inch cake, but I did not find it to be necessarily so. If you want more than two
layers, better to bake two 9-inch layers and split them. A 9x13-inch cake will work, but
requires careful testing by the cook after 25 minutes.
Beautiful Thick White Frosting
- 1-1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 egg whites (at room temperature)
Combine sugar, cream of tartar, salt and water in heavy
saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly,
until mixture is clear. Cook until mixture reaches 240°F
on a candy thermometer (soft ball stage).
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Let mixer continue
to run and slowly pour the sugar mixture in a thin stream
down the side of the mixer bowl (don't let the sugar
mixture come into contact with the beaters). Continue beating until stiff
peaks form and frosting thickens to desired consistency.
I admit that this frosting recipe is not the one most often paired
with Red Velvet Cake. The traditional recipe begins by cooking a mixture of flour
and milk, cooling it, and then whipping in butter, sugar and vanilla. But the
resulting frosting, however good it might be, must be refrigerated, and I don't like
my cake cold. The above frosting recipe will yield an extravagant amount of lavishly
beautiful and delicious white frosting.
Now, as for the connection between Red Velvet Cake and the Neiman Marcus cookie hoax goes,
back in the pre-Internet Eighties the following little vignette began to circulate. Before you read
it, however, let me state in advance that it is completely untrue. Actually,
the first time I heard it, the purported villain of the story was Mrs. Field's Cookies.
My daughter & I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas & decided to have a small dessert. Because both of
us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they
would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown, "I'm afraid not." Well, I said, would you let me buy
the recipe? With a cute smile, she said, "Yes." I asked how much, and she responded, "Only two fifty, it's a great deal!" I
said with approval, just add it to my tab.
Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it was $285.00. I looked again and I
remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the
statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe - $250.00." That's outrageous!! I called Neiman's Accounting Dept. and told them
the waitress said it was "two-fifty," which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by
any *POSSIBLE* interpretation of the phrase. Nieman-Marcus refused to budge. They would not refund my money,
because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the
recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to her the criminal statutes
which govern fraud in Texas, I threatened to refer them to the Better Business Bureau and the State's Attorney
General for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we don't give a crap, and we're not refunding your
money." I waited, thinking of how I could get even, or even try and get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you folks
got my $250, and now I'm going to have $250.00 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie
lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus......for free.
She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this." I said, "Well, you should have thought of that before you ripped me off, and
slammed down the phone on her.
So, here it is!!! Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250 dollars for this... I
don't want Neiman-Marcus to *ever* get another penny off of this recipe.
Pretty good story, huh? Well, it never happened. Why some people concoct these kinds
of stories is as mysterious as why some people are so eager to believe them. This
story is not without precedent, though.
Back in the 1930's (or the 1940's, depending upon which story you hear), a similar rumor
concerning the Waldorf Astoria Hotel circulated like
wildfire via post card, letters and word-of-mouth about, you guessed it, their Red Velvet Cake
recipe. The circumstances of that rumor were in line with the Forties ($100 supposedly charged
for the recipe, no VISA card, no e-mail, etc.), but the essence was the same.
It amazes me that the Neiman Marcus story continues to live, especially since thoroughly-researched
newspaper articles have been published debunking the hoax. And the Neiman Marcus organization
which, at the time this rumor began circulating, did not have a cookie on any of their restaurants'
menus, has since come up with a Neiman Marcus Cookie, the recipe for which they are only
too happy to give away. I would print the cookie recipe here, except for the fact that
my Internet "research" came up with two different versions. Suffice it to say that both
versions were for pretty good sounding chocolate chip cookies.
If you would like more information on the Neiman Marcus cookie hoax, a good place to start
is http://bedfordonline.com/hoax/nmcookie.htm,
for the stories, an LA Times newspaper article
providing additional information, and recipes, or you can search under "neiman marcus
cookie" on any of the major search engines. Or, for that matter, run a search on Red Velvet
Cake and, eventually, you'll get there.
The lesson here is that a healthy amount of skepticism is a good thing to have with you at
all times, but particularly when surfing the Internet.
