Red by Beets, Wine, or Dye
The story of Red Velvet cake and how it became a Juneteenth tradition
There are time-worn recipes for velvet cakes, but this treat’s red-hued journey to soul food staple is about much more than just a colorful dessert.
The Legendary Origins of (Red) Velvet Cake
Velvet cakes, sans the ruby red coloring, date to the late 19th Century when chocolate or cocoa powder was used to produce smoother, softer cakes and “velvet cake” became the term that differentiated it from the other popular sponge or pound cakes.
When cocoa is used in conjunction with acids, like those found in vinegar or buttermilk, a reddish hue is produced, but not nearly to the degree that we expect to see in a Red Velvet cake today.
There really is no definitive history to how or exactly when Red Velvet cakes came to being, and so there is not really one definitive technique to redden the cake the way we expect to see it now, but here are some methods if you’d like to develop your own.
Version One: Beets & Beet Juice
For those who prefer natural flavoring to Red 40 (see below), fresh beet juice or beet puree will lend a lovely ruby color. This naturally-colored Red Velvet recipe from Food52 specifically swears by fresh beets for the right hue; bottled beet juices just don’t create the right shade of bright ruby.
But really, beets are no stranger to sweets; use of them in cakes and cookies date back to sugar restrictions. In those times, beets, apples, citrus fruits, and berries brought a delicate but welcome sweet note to cakes and pies.
Version Two: Red, Red Wine
In Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts, Stella Parks includes a recipe for Red (Wine) Velvet Cake using red wine and raw cocoa that roasts into a rich burgundy hue. About the recipe, Parks says:
“With my recipe, I wanted to get back to the velvetiness that defined the original cake. I also wanted to get back to the raw cocoa powder, which is a cool thing that we can source now online. By using raw cocoa powder, the flavor comes out so much more; it's a more interesting flavor than a mild chocolate. I also used red wine to play up the fruitiness of the raw cocoa powder, and to also cash in on that chemical reaction that – once upon a time – made the reaction between raw cocoa powder and buttermilk so impressive. Red wine does something similar, while also playing up those fruity notes.”
Version Three: Lots and lots of Red Dye
Or you can use an extraordinary amount of food coloring to obtain a blood red cake. Adams Extract, founded in Texas in 1888, credits itself with bringing RED Velvet cake into American kitchens during the Great Depression. One of the first companies to sell vanilla and spice extracts as well as red food coloring, Adams Extract used point-of-sale posters and tear-off recipe cards to show homemakers the incredibly red cake that could be made with its products. Those early recipes though were really intended to sell A LOT of red food coloring - each cake was meant to use TWO bottles of red color.
Red Cakes for Juneteenth Jubilees
In As We Eat Episode 42: Red // Yellow // Green: the Multi-Colored Traditions of Juneteenth, we describe the colorful food traditions inherent to Juneteenth Jubilee celebrations. The color red has come to represent joy as much as it is also tribute to blood shed and the lives of those lost during enslavement. With its brilliant red hue, Red Velvet cake is broadly seen as a Juneteenth staple.
Yet some Black food scholars and authors are pushing back on that narrative. In her brand new book, Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations, Nicole A. Taylor writes that the reality of Red Velvet cake is that red food coloring and cream cheese frosting really dates back to the 1930s and 1940s. Instead, she suggests a return to the fluffy rich brown cake that was the star of Black celebrations. Culinary scholar Adrian Miller may agree as some of his research into Red Velvet history seems to indicate that the embrace of Red Velvet by Black cooks is relatively recent; his book “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine One Plate at a Time” excludes Red Velvet from a survey of more than a dozen dishes.
I completely get where Taylor and Miller are coming from, and I applaud Taylor’s option to walk the line between tradition and innovation. After all, tradition is just platform from which we not only view the past but can also look towards future, and it is the meaning that we ascribe to the food with which we celebrate that matter the most. Whether the red comes from dye or beets or red wine (or is not even red at all), may whatever is eaten for Juneteenth be full of as much joy as possible.
If you were to make your own “Jubilee” cake, what colors would you use and what do they mean to you?
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