It could be your dye (color). Are you in the UK? There are a few people complaining about the coloring in their red velvet coming out brownish with their dye.
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/09/red-velvet-cake/
I have tried the recipe above, from Confetti Cakes book. It's nice, fluffy and moist. It's in this blog, too. One of the comments says:
"I tried this last night. I baked it into cupcakes and rather than the suggested amount of food die, I just used a third of what was suggested. My cakes came out looking like chocolate cake 
and all you could taste was the food colouring! Bleh!
I tried the food colouring in a plain victoria sponge to make plain red cakes, but I used loads less possibly about 3 tsp, and still the cupcakes came out brown!!!! I think our UK food colouring is messed up, or completely different from the US stuff. If I still have any energy tonight I might test the plain victoria sponge with about half a tsp of food colouring and see what happens.
After my brown disaster I am completely with you on not getting red velvet cake! I think Ill just stick to chocolate next time
Apart from the colour and flavouring flavour, these cakes are great, nice and moist and airy!"
Which recipe are you trying?
Some RV recipes have a lot of cocoa powder in them which gives the cake more of a deep burgundy color. My recipe is like that, and I've been told by true Southerners that it's NOT authentic to have so much cocoa in it....so I've started telling people that my recipe is the Yankee version of RV!!
Perhaps your recipe is also rich in cocoa?
Hope that if the OP is in the UK, she can take your advice, Davwattie.
I have read that the color depends on what you use in the UK. I was desperately looking for a post where someone from the UK even sent us a link to a coloring product. Something to color chocolate. But I lost the link.
Hi, am new to cake central so here goes... the food colouring that you use is important, I use Silver Spoon red Food Colour, and it is a real popping red, and all my red velvet cakes come out red, give it a try, I also used the recipe from a site called...joyofbaking she is amazing, have a look...Hope this has helped.
Happy Baking.
ASorry to butt in but have been wondering if you can use paste colour (i have sugarflair red extra) in the rv mix as i have never made them before but want to try making them :-)
AI've always used Silver Spoon red food colouring! However I can't seem to find it anywhere any more! I can't find them in any supermarket (incl Sainsburys!) and it's no longer listed on any online supermarket's website! Has it been discontinued or something?
I use Sugarflair Red Extra for my RV cakes/cupcakes. I use 1/2 tsp for 12 cupcakes aprox. It will depend on your recipe though. The colour usually darkens in the oven but the batter has to be bright red in your mixer bowl before baking. Mine come out looking more burgundy rather than bright red when baked, but that's the way I like them (and it's my bestseller so others must like them too!)
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