I started thinking about a Valentine’s Day blog post as soon as I pulled these heart-shaped silicone baking cups out of my Christmas stocking. And if you’re making heart-shaped cupcakes, they should be bright red. And if you’re making heart-shaped bright red cupcakes, they should be covered in heart-shaped pink and red sprinkles. My philosophy toward Valentine’s Day is, if you’re going to do it, overdo it.
What’s weird is that the closest I can remember to eating red velvet cake is these whoopie pies that I made a couple months ago. In fact, I didn’t even know that red velvet cake existed until college, when one of my professors told me a story about someone throwing it up on her carpet and the stain never coming out.
My lack of red velvet cake experience is even stranger considering that my mom was recently telling me about a great recipe that my grandmother has for it. My sister made that recipe recently and said it was a little dry, but she’s baking at high altitude, which makes cakes prone to problems. I wanted to give the recipe a try myself.
But Deb has a recipe she recommends as well, and I’ve had very good experiences with almost everything I’ve made from her site. And Kelsey describes herself as a red velvet cake enthusiast, and she recently found a recipe she loves. And Cooks Illustrated (via Cooks Country, their slightly less OCD magazine) has a recipe, and in general their stuff is worth trying.
Four recipes, all highly recommended from trusted sources. There was no good way for me to choose just one, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to spend an entire evening baking something as simple as cupcakes do a recipe comparison.
Before I discuss detailed comparisons between each, let me cut to the chase and tell you that every single cake was really good, both in taste and texture. There were differences, but they were subtle. Dave and I had a hard time choosing favorites. That being said, once I ate enough cupcakes, preferences started to emerge.
In the discussion below, I will use the following abbreviations: SK for Smitten Kitchen; G for my grandmother’s recipe; AD for Apple a Day, and CC for Cooks Country.
Effort: None of the cakes were exceptionally difficult. AD was the simplest – the dry and wet ingredients were mixed separately, then combined in the mixer. SK and G called for the vinegar and baking soda to be mixed together before being added to the already-mixed remaining ingredients, which I’d never seen before. And G and CC call for the cocoa and food coloring to be stirred into a paste initially, which Cooks Country explains is to distribute the cocoa more evenly.
from left to right: SK, AD, G, CC
Color: While the shades of red vary, all of the cakes are definitely red. I have no preference. I should note that I used a little less food coloring in G and SK than the recipes called for, because I thought I was going to run out. Even so, I think their color is fine.
from left to right: SK, AD, G, CC
Texture: While I wouldn’t call any of the cakes dry, G did seem less moist than the others. This isn’t surprising considering that it uses the least fat of these recipes and only a third of the fat of one of them (AD). AD and SK, both of which used oil as the fat, were perhaps a little moister than CC and G, which call for butter. None of the cakes were too dense, but SK and CC seemed especially fluffy. I was expecting a different texture in CC compared to the rest, because it was the only recipe that called for all-purpose instead of cake flour, but it wasn’t noticeable.
Taste: One thing that I think it important to note about Red Velvet cake, that Cooks Country clarifies in their article, is that it not meant to be a chocolate cake. The small amount of cocoa is just there to provide the red color. Unfortunately, CC’s cake was my least favorite. I think it’s because of one very small difference between their recipe and the others – the rest call for a teaspoon of salt, CC has just a pinch in it. The flavor of this cake was definitely muted compared to the others. The rest were all really good. SK calls for over twice as much cocoa as the others, which was enough so that I could actually taste a little chocolatiness. I like chocolate of course, but in this case, it masked that classic Red Velvet tanginess. AD and G tasted somewhat similar, but I think G had a little bit of a metallic taste to it (which I have no explanation for).
So, in the end, I choose AD (found through Kelsey’s Apple a Day and originally from Saveur) as my favorite, for its moistness, its bright, pinky red color, the ease with which it comes together, and especially its sweet but tangy flavor.
Update 2/15/09: When BMK pointed me in the direction of another oft-recommended Red Velvet cake recipe, I used amazing restraint in waiting a whole 6 hours before I tried it. The Pastry Queen’s recipe uses butter instead of oil as the fat, and it includes sour cream. Other than the sour cream and calling for both all-purpose and cake flour, the ingredient list was similar to the other recipes I tried.
top – Pastry Queen; bottom – Apple a Day
I generally prefer butter over oil in desserts, and I think sour cream makes cakes really tender, so I was pre-disposed toward liking the Pastry Queen’s cake. And it really was great – fluffy, moist, tangy, even-textured (although it doesn’t look like that here – the recipe specifically warns not to overbake the cupcakes, so of course I underbaked them). However, in the end, I still preferred the recipe from Kelsey’s Apple A Day, originally from Saveur, which also has great texture, and I like the flavor a little more. But this is definitely a personal preference – you can’t go wrong with either recipe. Next time I might experiment with using the ingredients from AD, substituting butter for the oil, and using the mixing method from the Pastry Queen’s recipe.
left – Pastry Queen; right – Apple a Day
One year ago: A comparison of four vanilla frostings
Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (from Apple a Day, who adapted it from www.saveur.com)
Makes 1 8-inch 3-layer cake
For the cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
For the frosting:
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
12 ounces butter, softened
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1½ cups chopped pecans (optional)
1. For the cake: Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa, and salt into a medium bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.
4. Divide batter evenly between 3 greased and floured 8″ round cake pans.
5. Bake cakes, rotating halfway through, until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Let cakes cool 5 minutes, then invert each onto a plate, then invert again onto a cooling rack. Let cakes cool completely.
6. For the frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Add sugar and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes.
4. Put 1 cake layer on a cake plate, level off with a serrated knife, and spread one-quarter of the frosting on top. Set another layer on top, level, and repeat frosting. Set remaining layer on top, level, and frost top and sides with the remaining frosting. Press pecans into the sides of the cake, if desired. **Tip: after leveling cake, turn it upside down to reduce numbers of crumbs. I also did a crumb coat on the outside, let it set for ten minutes, then finished with remaining frosting.
5. Chill for 2 hours to set frosting.
Red Velvet Cake (from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from “The Confetti Cakes Cookbook” by Elisa Strauss via the New York Times 2/14/07)
Bridget note: This is the frosting that I used. It was great. (I’ve never met a homemade cream cheese frosting that I didn’t like.) Also, note that this recipe makes 50% more than the others.
Makes 1 9-inch 3-layer cake
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3½ cups cake flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)
1½ teaspoons salt
2 cups canola oil
2¼ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) red food coloring or 1 teaspoon red gel food coloring dissolved in 6 tablespoons of water
1½ teaspoons vanilla
1¼ cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking soda
2½ teaspoons white vinegar.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place teaspoon of butter in each of 3 round 9-inch layer cake pans and place pans in oven for a few minutes until butter melts. Remove pans from oven, brush interior bottom and sides of each with butter and line bottoms with parchment.
2. Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl.
3. Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.
4. Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.
5. Divide batter among pans, place in oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off parchment. Cool completely before frosting.
Red Cake (from my grandmother)
Makes 1 9-inch 2-layer cake
My grandmother isn’t known for adding a lot of detail to her recipes. I’ve added some.
Also, the frosting here isn’t the cream cheese frosting you usually see associated with red velvet cakes these days. Instead, it’s based on a cooked flour mixture similar to this.
2 ounces red food coloring
2 tablespoon cocoa
2¼ cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup shortening (I used butter of course), softened
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350C. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Make a paste out of the food coloring and the cocoa. Mix together the flour and salt.
2. Cream shortening and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one a time, then the vanilla. Mix in food coloring paste. Add a third of the flour mixture, then half the buttermilk, a third of the flour, half the buttermilk, and ending with the rest of the flour. Holding a small dish over the mixing bowl, add vinegar to baking soda, pouring it into the mixing bowl as it foams. (The original recipe now says “Beat as you would any cake.” That’s helpful!) Beat at medium speed for 30 seconds.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool slightly in pans, then invert the cakes onto a cooling rack. When cool, split each later in two and frost.
Frosting:
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter
Cook flour and milk until thick. Cool. Cream butter and sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Blend the creamed mixture into cooked mixture. Beat. The longer you beat it, the better it gets.
Red Velvet Cake (from Cooks Country Dec 2006/Jan 2007)
Serves 12
CC note: The recipe must be prepared with natural cocoa powder. Dutch-processed cocoa will not yield the proper color or rise.
Cake
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
Pinch salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons natural cocoa powder
2 tablespoons red food coloring
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups granulated sugar
Frosting
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
16 ounces cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces, softened
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch salt
1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Whisk buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and eggs in large measuring cup. Mix cocoa with food coloring in small bowl until a smooth paste forms.
2. With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as necessary. Add one-third of flour mixture and beat on medium-low speed until just incorporated, about 30 seconds. Add half of buttermilk mixture and beat on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl as necessary and repeat with half of remaining flour mixture, remaining buttermilk mixture, and finally remaining flour mixture. Scrape down bowl, add cocoa mixture, and beat on medium speed until completely incorporated, about 30 seconds. Using rubber spatula, give batter final stir. Scrape into prepared pans and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans 10 minutes then turn out onto rack to cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
3. For the frosting: With electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Beat in vanilla and salt. Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. When cakes are cooled, spread about 2 cups frosting on one cake layer. Top with second cake layer and spread top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 3 days.
I love you for this recipe, Red Velvet cake is one of my all time faves!! Can’t wait to try it!
Beautiful job on the cupcakes and I love your comparisons. I find them very valuable and really appreciate the time and effort you put forth to save many fellow bakers the time and trouble of figuring out what recipe to try among so many to choose from. Well done and thank you for your informative post! 🙂
I’ll take on of each please 🙂
A week or two ago I made red velvet whoopie pies in the shape of hearts. I found that it was pretty hard and a lot of work. I had forgotten that cake-type dough is a LOT stickier than cookie dough (which is what I’m used to) and had to make each individual heart by hand. They’re weren’t bad, nor really ill-formed. I’m a mild perfectionist.
(We used your previous red velvet, but thought it was too sweet. I think that’s because we’re a salt lovers, and sugary cake plus sugary icing is just a tad too much. Although that’s probably a good thing, so we don’t eat them all at once.)
Love your comparisons. So thorough and detailed! The heart shaped cupcakes are adorable. I guess its not a bad problem to have that you made three sets of very yummy cupcakes! I’ve heard that many people like Rebecca Rather’s recipe from the Pastry Queen. I’m trying to figure out if the red food coloring can be omitted without affecting the cake. We avoid artificial colors and I can’t get past the use of a whole bottle in most recipes. I guess I could always sub in an ounce of water to make up for the lost liquid.
OMGosh! So, FIRST of all, you KNOW how I LOVE your comparison posts. I seriously pph them. Secondly, I was going to make red velvet cupcakes last night and was sooooo mad this morning b/c I didn’t have time. But you’ve made me feel SO much better now! Now I’ll make the Saveur recipe and KNOW it’s the best! Thank you x 100 and Happy Valentine’s Day, Bridget! 🙂
You’re my hero! I’ll definitely be referencing this post in the future.
Every time you do one of these recipe comparisons, I feel the need to bookmark it. Then I tell myself I should try comparing recipes sometime. And I never do. Luckily, you keep doing it for me 🙂 Fabulous!
Thats for that test Bridget! I’ve always wanted to make red velvet cake, but there were just too many recipes to choose from. Even though CC was your least favourite, was it because of taste? I really like how it uses all purpose flour instead of cake flour while not sacrificing texture. Do you think adding more salt will bring the flours out more?
” My philosophy toward Valentine’s Day is, if you’re going to do it, overdo it.”
Amen to that!! 😀
BMK – It looks like Rebecca Rather’s recipe is significantly different from all four of these, which only had small differences between them. Now I’m trying to resist going and making some right now to see the difference.
Also, while I generally try to avoid food coloring as well, I’m willing to make an exception once in a while for something like this. To reduce the amount, you could try doubling the cocoa. (You may want to check out Deb’s recipe actually, since it uses quite a bit of cocoa.) Two of these recipes used twice as much food coloring as the others, but I thought they all had a nice red color, so I think 1 ounce (which is still a lot) is plenty for a 3-layer cake. And I’ve heard that people have tried using beets, but the cakes ended up tasting too much like beets.
Steph – The only problem I had with Cook’s Country’s recipe was the flat taste, and yes, I think increasing the salt would easily solve that. I’m kind of kicking myself for not using the same amount that the other recipes called for in the first place, but I wanted to follow the recipes exactly for the comparison.
Wow! What a task! Great job!
Ah, I love these… I especially love the comparison pics. Well, congratulations to AD! 😉 Especially since it’s the simplest. But I guess if you were looking for a lower-fat recipe, Grandma’s would do 🙂 (so you can double up on the cream cheese frosting!) But I still wouldn’t do the paste thing. There seems to be no problem mixing it in with the flour anyway!
What a wonderful comparison!! Red velvet cake is my absolute favorite!!
Thanks for the reply Bridgett! I’m going to try the CC version b/c I like how it’s butter based and uses all purpose flour. For some reason even though oil based cakes are more moist, the crumb seems to be a little coarser and less tender (or it could just the be recipes I’m using)
If I don’t have buttermilk, do you think it’s ok that I make it using the 1tbsp + 1 cup of milk method. That way, I’ll end up having 2 tbsp of vinegar in the recipe though… I wonder if that’s ok.
Steph – I think the clabbered milk trick would work, but it might not be quite as good as if you used buttermilk. The buttermilk flavor kind of comes through in the cake (at least for all them except the one from Smitten Kitchen, which was more chocolately).
Wow, you are quite thorough! Thanks for all the good info!
Thank u for saving me a lot of research time! I just made red velvet cheesecake for the first time, and consider it a success! Next up with be your top pick for the cake version. Thks again – I can see it was a LOT of work. And ingredients aren’t that cheap these days!
Hey! great job with the side-by-side comparisons! love the pics!
That was a great comparison, I really enjoyed it! Great photos too, great style…
I just love your comparison posts! The cupcakes look beautiful. I love the heart shape. I made Deb’s recipe a while ago and really liked it, but I’ve also been wanting to try Cake Man Raven’s recipe too. I’ll have to make that one next time since you gave it such great reviews!
What a smart post.
I’ve drooled over red velvet cake but never made it.
I think I’ll brave the land of baking.
thank you for this.
The different shades of red are stunning! I bet it was fun getting to taste all of them. 🙂
i loveee the heart-shape cupcake liners!:)
Love everything about this post – right from the adorable heart shaped muffin liners to the details of each recipe tested. I’m floored. Stumbled it for future reference as well. I’ve never made a red velet cupcake and when I do decide to finally make it, I’m definitely coming back to this. 🙂
I love love these posts. I really like the way the SK cake looks and sounds, now I know which to try if I get a hankering for some red velvet.
Thank you so much for the comparison! I’ve been struggling with RV recipes for months. Can’t wait to give it another whirl 🙂
Beautiful photos. You are seriously doing a service to all of us for checking out and comparing these recipes 🙂 I wonder where all the non-tester cupcakes went…?
Wow, what an effort! Thanks so much for taking on this task for all of our benefit. At least you got to enjoy *many* sweet rewards. I just pulled red velvet cupcakes out of the oven – I used the recipe on Pinch My Salt (http://pinchmysalt.com/2009/02/04/red-velvet-cupcakes-with-cream-cheese-frosting-recipe/) and they’re looking pretty great!
Chris – I only made 1/4 of each of the recipes, so it’s not quite as many cupcakes as it sounds like. Still, I’m a little red velveted-out at this point, and my freezer is stocked with enough dessert for weeks!
Excellent post, thanks for sharing your research and results! Happy Valentine’s Day!
Mmmm… this looks like an experiment I would be happy to take part in!! Red Velvet is my fave cake of all time. Will definitely bookmark!
What a great comparison, Bridget! I’m so honored you trusted me enough to try my favorite recipe and I’m even happier you liked it!
I was JUST looking for a recipe so this comparison is VERY helpful!!!
Simply beautiful. I would love to know where to buy these lovely heart shape silicone cupcakes baking cups.
I’ve always wanted to do this comparison, but never had the time, this was very helpful!
Thank you so much for this! I have been wanting to make these for quite some time but was unsure which recipe to use. Your comparison was exactly what I needed. I made the ones from Apple A Day and they were divine! Love your blog!
I don’t know if this is a stupid question or not, but how did you make only 1/4 of each recipe? That must’ve been a lot of math!
And don’t the pros always say that you can’t do that with baking, since it’s all about formulas and such?
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a smart aleck! But I wouldn’t mind trying all of the recipes above as well (just to see which one suits my taste best), so I’m just wondering how I could do that without having hundreds of cupcakes on my hands! (Not that my pals and neighbors would mind…)
Lisa – I made 1/4 of each recipe. Yes, supposedly you’re not supposed to cut recipes down, but I do it all the time, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem. I guess it helps that I have a good scale and measure everything I can by weight.
I LOVE red velvet cake! I haven’t tried as many recipes as you have. When I lived in Florida we drove to Sanibel Island every year for my birthday so I could have Red Velvet from The Bubble Room!!
I found the recipe on epicurian and I think it is so good (and it disappear pretty quickly when I make it!).
Here’s a link:
http://www.recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/1954/bubble-room-red-velvet-cake.com
Love your comparison!!!