I Need Red Velvet Advice...
Decorating By sweetlybaked Updated 30 Nov 2006 , 11:03pm by sweetlybaked
I've never made a Red Velvet cake before. I want to make one for this weekend, a family Christmas party. I thought it'd look really pretty decorated w/ poinsettas on top. Anyway, I've looked through the forums and recipes and have seen a couple that I want to try. Can anyone give me ANY input on them or any others? I'm not trying to start a RV war here, I just want the cake to be delicious! I see a couple of main differences in the recipes I've looked through, can you also tell me what a difference certain ingredients make. Such as vinegar, oil vs. butter, more or less baking soda and salt? Thank you to everyone, this site is so wonderful!!!
The 2 that I'm wondering about especially are
Sara's Red Velvet Cake-a tradition of excellence (found here on CC)
Cakeman Raven's recipe (found on a thread here on CC) the link:
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=8582&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=red&&start=15
ANY ADVICE ON DOING A RV WOULD BE GREAT, EVEN IF IT'S NOT RELATED TO ANY RECIPE IN PARTICULAR! THANKS AGAIN 
Hi,
In the South, Red Velvet is the cake of choice for many! I personally like the recipe from Southern Living the best. I have not tried the ones on this site though so in my opinion the most important ingredient is vinegar. I'm gonna have to try one of those on this site 
I haven't tried either of those - but I did try one from a friend who SWORE her recipe was the best she had ever tasted. I didn't like it at all - it was heavy and didn't taste that great to me. But then, I am not to fond of Red Velvet cakes anyway. I would also like to have a good recipe, I get requests from time to time - and those that seem to like rv cakes say they are their FAVORITES!
Hi, as a Georgia girl, the recipes made with oil are the best/moistest. I use the one on foodtv.com. It's Sara Moulton's recipe. Delish! Don't overbake.
Good luck!
Lisa
i haven't tried either recipe. but only advice i can give is that the cake should be very moist.
I'm with MJS on this one. Georgia gal here and I have always had great results with the Southern Living RV recipe.
Hi! I have tried Sara's Red Velvet Recipe (from here). It was my first red velvet (baking or tasting), so I have no point for comparison, but just thought I'd let you know that I found it very light and moist and it tasted delicious (it has more cocoa in it than a lot of the other red velvet recipes I've seen). The only thing I changed, was that I only used one bottle of red colouring (it was all I had in the cupboard at the time!).
HTH
Kelly
Does anyone know how much flavor, if any, the red food coloring gives the cake. I can taste red food coloring REALLY easily, so I was just curious about this. I made red frosting last night and it was GROSS!!!! Anyone have any experience w/ this part of a RV?
Hi, as a Georgia girl, the recipes made with oil are the best/moistest. I use the one on foodtv.com. It's Sara Moulton's recipe. Delish! Don't overbake.
Good luck!
Lisa
I recently made this same one for 2 of my cakes a 2 layer 9 inch heart with creamcheese icing and a 2 tier 10 and 8 inch stacked cake with b/c creamcheese icing and got rave reviews from the two different events I took them to. It held up well to decorating but was moist and delish. Not too heavy and too much red added. I used americolor super-red. It took less and worked well. Good luck.
Also butter makes a more dense cake but the flavor is different where as oil can be a little too light and moist sometimes, IMHO. I'm sure you'll get lots of different opinions on here. 
Kelly, did using only the one bottle of coloring give it a good deep color red?
Here's a cake mix doctor recipe:
http://www.recipezaar.com/152630
This is the Red Velvet recipe I use and it is awesome. It is from Great Desserts of the South cookbook:
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon of cocoa
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ounces red food coloring
1 teaspoon soda
1 Tablespoon vinegar
Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. Sift flour, cocoa, and salt three times and add alternately to creamed mixture with buttermilk. Add vanilla and food coloring. Dissolve soda in vinegar; fold it into the cake (do not beat). Bake in 2 greased and floured 9-inch cake pans at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Turn cake out on a rack; cool and frost. Will serve 12
I use cream cheese icing and it is delicious, I get alot of requests for this cake!! Enjoy!
I recently made a RV cake and did just what you are doing. I finally decided on Sara Moulton's recipe from FOODnetwork.com which is also Southern Red Velvet Cake Recipe courtesy Cakeman Raven, Cakeman Raven Confectionery, NYC.
The only thing I did different than the recipe was tripled the cocoa and used only 1 ounce of liquid red food coloring and a tad of Wilton no-taste red cuz that's all I had. lol Everyone loved it!
Thank you so much everyone for your input. I will let you know how it turned out and post a pic!
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