It does have a specific flavor but it isn't like a chocolate cake. It has a taste of it's own. There is a recipe on this site for Sarah's Red Velvet cake that is delicious. Very moist and easy to make. My DH family loves red velvet and I got rave reviews with that recipe. Give it a ty and see what you think.
I wondered about this too - i have no idea.
I do know that some times recipes vary by where you live etc - my whole family is from NY and some foods are way different yet seem similar to ones in TX...
Isn't red velvet a southern thing? I'd check to see if a southern bakery recipe varies from what you found!
It's massively popular here in the South. If you don't make it, you don't get business, plain and simple. It is usually iced in a cream cheese icing and often will have chopped (and toasted if you are me) nuts on it.
I don't like it. But I"m not from the South. But when people talk about red velvet here in the South it's like talking about their religion or Martin Luther King Jr. Everyone has an opinion and they defend it to the death, let me tell you.
Rachel
I'm an avowed Red Velvet Snob...after trying more than 45+ different recipes for it -yes there are that many- I am sticking w/ my family heirloom recipe (Sarah's Red Velvet) which I've also posted to the cc recipe area.
Red Velvet is more than just a "red" cake - it's more reminiscient of a Devil's Food Cake, but is a vibrant red colour. Some recipes call for the use of vinegar and buttermilk, and in all honesty the vinegar is not needed. If you have a recipe w/ buttermilk, the acidity in the buttermilk lends enough "acidity" to allow the baking soda to go to work.
Some recipes call for the use of a cream cheese frosting 
(GAG me! I actually had some lady offer me some RVC w/ imposter frosting and after trying a bite, I spit it out, and told her that I would gladly give her my family recipe....poor cake!)
I'm fortunate enough to come from a line of great bakers, and these ladies KNOW how to make a RVC, one mention of cream cheese frosting and they will turn up their nose - as Granna put it "they're messing it up if they don't use the original frosting"
I'll never forget a lady who was referred to speak to me about RVC -and as I explained what a RVC was, another lady made the mistake of butting in and needless to say got an earful on why cream cheese frosting doesn't belong on RVC, needless to say she ended up scaring the other lady when she said that "the use of so much food colouring will eventually show up" - I couldn't help but reply that perhaps the reason she had such a problem was likely due to her choice of frosting 
- Oh and Rachel is correct...I'm the type that would definately defend RVC to the death, as long as it has the correct frosting...as you can possibly tell, I also will argue w/ people about RVC
I make it using Duncan Hines Red Velvet mix. I add a box of white chocolate pudding and I use buttermilk instead of water. It does have a sort of milk chocolate flavor and people really love it. I ice it with vanilla cream cheese buttercream or milk chocolate buttercream---very pretty and delicious, too.
Rae
I havent tried the recipe from this site but REAL red velvet cake doesnt taste like anything else...at least not to me. I have tried several box mixes and NONE of them taste like the real thing. Its not that they're bad, they're just 'not it'.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the real stuff!!! 
All I ever hear with Red Velvet is Cream Cheese, so what do you use for the icing instead of cream cheese? I know it is the Mary Kay icing, but what exactly is this type of icing? Red Velvet is becoming more popular up here in Minnesota (1 in 3 brides ask from me for a taste test), but apparently I am offering the California icing with it. So, when I explain to a bride the icings that go on top of the RVC, how exactly do you explain the Mary Kay Icing?
Edited to explain my question more....
TPDC - What a question 
The icing like the cake is truly unique. I can explain a RVC w/o a problem, but to explain the icing it makes my mind dizzy 
The icing encompasses SO many cooking techniques - don't let it scare you it's actually easy
First the icing starts off by being cooked -basically making a roux (which is DEFINATELY a southern term ) and then it moves to a stage where the "roux" cools to room temperature.
Meanwhile, you have other ingredients which are being creamed together.
Then you have the culmination where the roux mixture meets the creamed mixture to become a whipped mixture which although it is whipped, it is not as airy or delicate like a "whipped cream" would be, and yet it's not as heavy or dense as a buttercream or a cream cheese frosting.
The texture -if the icing is made properly- is delicate in feel, literally like a soft buttercream, but not overly sweet - the icing does have sugar in it, but it is granulated. If I have any particuliar question about the recipe it is simply "is this granulated or confectioner sugar" which I can understand, and most people will think it will come out grainy. Well if you make it properly the granules will dissolve and you'll be left w/ an icing that has a slight hint of a buttery vanilla flavour - hope that helps 
I use a recipe called southern red velvet cake..
Newlywedws - I'm glad to see someone else who knows what Red Velvet Cake is really supposed to be. Cream cheese icing is an abomination on this cake, IMHO. Yet, that's all you see. I got my recipe back in the sixties when this cake began to show up a lot at potluck dinners and such. It has the multi-stage cooked frosting you describe. I'm also a snob about the food coloring. I insist on McCormick's red food coloring. No other will do. Prepared correctly, this cake really IS like red velvet. It is amazing. But, I'm willing to bet that few people today have ever tasted a REAL red velvet cake. It's a pity.
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