Sorry for teh confusion! I made Rose's. Just wanted to report back after my try and didn't read the last posts about other recipes. Rose's will be my one and only red velvet after this!

Tried the dream white choc cream cheese icing and it was spectacular! My new fave cream cheese icing. I don't like things really sweet, so I cut the white choc by 1/2, used 1 part almond and 3 parts vanilla and added about a 1/4 cup of icing sugar (oh, and I even quadrupled the recipe for my needs). It was perfect! Is this listed in the recipes? I want to add my 10/10 vote...

Okay, so I did the Rose's Red Velvet cake. Hmmm, it is definetly good. It has a very fine crumb. I absoluetly adore her creamcheese frosting. I think it's better then her cake bible version. BUT, I think I like Cakeman Raven's better. It taste more like a true Sothern red velvet cake. I also prefer a richer flavor and denser crumb. But I will definetly use her cream cheese frosting.

Oh yeah, not sure if anyone remembers the Red Velvet cheesecake thread. But I did one for Christmas and it was WONDERFUL! Three layers of red velvet with a cheesecake layer in between, wow! The cheesecake layers were easier then I thought they would be to do as well. The key was getting the parchment paper at the bottom to break it's seal. They came out no problem!

hmmm I may need to try Rose's RV recipe.. I get lots of Down home compliments about my red velvet cake.. its all butter..

I just located my mother's recipe for red velvet cake. I used to love it when I was a kid. The recipe is at least 50 years old, and probably much older than that. She used two TBL of cocoa and a used both buttermilk and vinegar. It looks a lot like the Martha Stewart recipe. I haven't had it for many years, so I guess I'll have to rty it soon and see if it's as good as I remember.

The thing that distinguishes it from others I read about is the frosting. It was a "milk" frosting: flour and milk were cooked together and then the butter and sugar were added. Not as sweet as most frostings. I don't know if this was a New England thing or not, but I it's the only cake she paired with this frosting.

Wow! I may have to give Rose's a try!

I don't feel this recipe has enough cocoa in it to pass a Southerner's idea of Red Velvet. One T is not enough to give the proper flavor, IMO. Perhaps I'll try this with some of my own modifications.

I won't buy this book. I have the Cake Bible and rarely use it. I find the cakes in there to be drier than what i like in a cake. My Southern Living recipes I base my cakes off of are far better, I feel, as do most of my clients.

Just wanted to say that I tried Rose's recipe for red velvet today and it was great! I actually went out and got the superfine sugar like the recipe says and I'm surprised at the difference it made! I think I will try upping the amount of cocoa next time, but this flavor was really nice too.

I didn't try the frosting, I tried Edna's Crusting Cream Cheese Buttercream. I liked it, though I'm still going to try the icing that came with the cake recipe at least once.

ive been wanting to try to make this but not had the courage yet - we dont do red velvet down here

with the recipe, when it says cake flour or all bleached all purpose flour - do they mean plain flour or self rasing flour?

thanks

Mrs-A -
all-purpose flour means plain - not self-rising

I did a little taste test of my own.

Cakeman Ravens RV. (three days ago)
The instructions didnt say to weigh out the flower, so I lightly scooped the flower to measure cup, until I reached the required amount listed in the recipe. The cake was very good, but had slight floury after taste. I went out the following day and purchased a scale and tried it again (7.93 oz). This time the cake tasted wonderful, and everyone at work loved it.


Roses RV (today)
I weighted out my flower as instructed in the recipe, 2 cups = 7oz. The cake was good, but this one also had a floury after taste. Im going to try again tonight, but instead of using the 7 oz as indicated in the recipe Im going to use my online conversion chart that says it should be 6.34 oz of cake flour. This cake was also little dry, just a little, so Im going to up the oil to 1/3 cup instead of the listed ¼ cup.

Im also freezing both cakes for a few days to see how they taste after being in the freezer, because I need a denser cake for stacking.

Okay, I pulled out Cakeman's RV and let it sit for a while. I just tasted it and it was still wonderful. I'm going to make it again, but this time I'm going to only use 1 1/4 cup of oil instead of the listed 1 1/2 cups, because it's still a little to moist.

to be continued......


Edited to add: my taste test was done without frosting or filling.

TejasRebel - can you post the Smitten Kitchen's RV recipe? I'd like to give that one a try.

thank you for posting the recipe. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Okay, so I just tasted Rose's RV with 1/3 cup oil and it still taste dry. I'm sure the cake wasn't over cooked, because I had just checked it with a toothpick and it had little crumbs stuck to it.

I like really like the texture and color of the cake.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I will put Rose's on my "to bake list."

I tend to dislike cream cheese frosting, as my grandmother's red velvet cake had a cooked frosting on it that I am now tempted to perfect. However, that recipe is kinda dry, so it still needs some tweaking.

I tried Cake Man Raven's cupcakes from the bakery, late at night. They tasted dry, and the icing was overly cream cheese tasting. I may try the recipe at home sometime.

I made the WASC version of RV (from this site), and although it tasted good, it was very wet, not moist, but wet. It was also a very, very dense cake.

I took Rose's RV out of the freezer and gave it a taste this morning and it tasted a lot better, less dry. I think when I add the frosting/filling to the cake it will taste GREAT.

So far Cakeman Raven's recipe is the best very good flavor and testure. (I just need to find a way to make the cake denser for stacking)

I'm going to try Smitten Kitchen's recipe next.

I like the Red Velvet Cake from Cook's Illustrated out of most other recipes I have had, but now I want to try Rose's and Cakeman's too see how they compare!

Ok, so I think I will try making Cake Man Raven's recipe into cupcakes this weekend. The only problem is, is that I live in the UK, and as far as I know, we do not have buttermilk here. Will this recipe still turn out ok if I use the standard subsitute for buttermilk (regular milk + vinegar and let stand for 5 mins).

Thanks

I'm not sure about this recipe...but I use buttermilk in my banana nut cake and i Never have buttermilk, so I Always use this substitute and it always comes out perfectly.

Ok, so I was going to make a batch of both Cake Man Raven's and Paula Deen's Red Velvet cupcakes, but once I printed them out and compared the ingreedients they are EXACTLY THE SAME!!! Hmm, someone's stolen someone's recipe!

Paula Deen's ingreedients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons red food coloring
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake Man's:

2-1/2 cups of cake flour
1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of fine salt
1 teaspoon of cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups of vegetable oil
1 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs
1 oz. of red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vinegar (white distilled)
1 tsp. of vanilla extract.


Can you copywrite a recipe?

I just tried Cakeman Raven's today -- I'd only ever made Red Velvet one other time and found it disgusting!! But, a friend requested it for her going away cake. So, I tried a batch of cupcakes today and topped them with Decorator's Cream Cheese Frosting from here on CC. They're actually pretty good! Still not my favorite, but a HUGE improvement from the first recipe I tried, which went straight into the trash. Oh, and I increased the cocoa powder from 1 tsp. to 2 Tbsps.

I've been making Cakeman Raven's red velvet and everyone loves it. I increased the cocoa to 1 tablespoon.