I customer ask me for a Red velvet cake. I tried the Sarah's Red Velvet Cake Tweat that I found here. I halfed the recipe and was supose to use 1/2 once red food colouring and I decided to go with 1 tbsp. I also did not have buttermilk and used milk that was soured with vinegar.

I want to know if a red velvet cake has a bitter taste in flavour when going down. Or is it because I used the milk soured with vinegar?

Would the recipe be ok then if I just reduce the colouring. Or probably I should have been using a no taste colouring?

Thanks CC

I don't believe the food coloring had anything to do with the taste. I use the bottled food coloring all the time in mine and it is just fine. If I go to sour my milk, I use lemon juice...when I don't have real buttermilk. I would have to think it was the vinegar that did it.

The red velvet cake has a smooth taste to me.... not too sweet.

What kind of food coloring did you use? Was it the liquid McCormick's kind, or a gel? I always use the bottle of McC's and never have a bitter taste.

I agree, I think it was the vinegar. I make red velvet cake probably once a week and it is personally one of my favorites. I normally use the liquid food color. In fact, it turns out better (for me) withthe liquid instead of the jell colors). The vinegar probably made the cake pretty moist, though! Lemon juice would work much better or substituting sour cream for the buttermilk would have worked also. I'm so sorry you had a problem with it. Don't let that jade your opinion of red velvet cake. It's my most popular cake flavor.

I made Sarah's red velvet cake recipe from this site and used buttermilk and red food coloring (McCormick bottle from the grocery store) and it came out fantastic.

I would then have to guess that it was the vinegar as well?

Also, you wrote the word Tweat after the name of the recipe. Does that mean it was Sarah's recipe that someone tried to tweak? I used the original "Sarah's red velvet cake" recipe that is posted here and it's great. I guess someone changed her recipe, copied it and called it tweaked? I didn't check.

Try it again with the ingredients as originally written and I think you'll be pleased.

Good luck!

Queenproject, the first time I tried making a red velvet cake I made Sarah's red velvet and found that it had an after taste while a friend of mine made a red velvet cake the same day and her's called for vinager and she said it was awesome. I have yet to make another one as I'm not sure which recipe to use.

I would love a copy of Sarah Red velvet cake! I tried three recipes this week and they were horrible! One did not even rise! I do use lemon in milk for buttermilk! Good luck! Sounds like we ate both looking for a good recipe!

Hi Rochelle1,

If you are still keen on making the red velvet cake, you might want to try Paula Deen's. Hers come out moist, is a little dense (good) and the cake texture is tender. I use vinegar for the buttermilk and have no problems with it. I was about to make a batch of Paula's red velvet when I saw this thread.

I looked at Sarah's red velvet recipe and it calls for 1 1/4 tsp baking soda vs. Paula's 1/2 tsp.. I'm wondering whether it's the baking soda that's the cause of the bitter taste. Good luck!

Um, I don't think it was the vinegar. My best selling, most requested cake is my red velvet cake and I make it every single week. It calls for vinegar mixed with 2 tsps of baking soda in the recipe AND I have soured my milk with vinegar when I had a last minute order and was out of buttermilk. It also certaily wasn't the coloring either. I have not looked at the recipe you mentioned so I can not really comment on why it was bitter. But I can tell you that this is NOT a overly sweet cake. But it is a flavorful moist softly sweetened, tangy cake but in no way should it be bitter...

I always use vinegar with the milk instead of buttermilk. Never had a problem. Well, except once. I used apple cider vinegar instead of the white. Yep, that was nasty. I also had something like this happen once when I forgot to add all the sugar. I accidentally left some out which heightened the other flavors, the non-good ones.

Is it possible something didn't get divided with the other ingredients? I make mine with buttermilk and vinegar....pie crust with vinegar....when baked, it doesn't cause things to be bitter...if I had a bitter taste with that recipe and I had cut the recipe in half, that I might possibly have accidently not reduced the baking soda by half.

1 tablespoon is a 1/2 ounce liquid. If, by chance, the 1 tablespoon of red coloring was gel....that could have something to do with the bitter taste.

I always use milk soured with vinegar and have never had a problem taste wise. I do know that if you are using a large amount of red as with red velvet, I'd go with the no taste red. Some red coloring can be bitter. If you don't belive me just taste it. i had this problem with some buttercream roses once and it was the red coloring.Hope this helps.