# Very unique Red velvet quest



## fitcook (Jul 12, 2008)

I need a recipe for a red velvet ( or similar in taste) pie or VERY soft cake-almost like a pudding. I'm trying to create one, but I need the assistance of experts here to help me in this quest. 
I've looked all over the internet, and can find recipes red velvet puddings with raspberries, this is not what I am looking for. I'm in search of the original thing red velvet- impact sour taste.
Aret there any alternatives? I looked into chcoolate buttermilk pies/etc, but they dont seem to have quite the same sourness to them. 
PLEASE HELP, or please point me in the right direction. 
Many thanks


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

I reread your post and see that you are asking for a pie and not a cake, and what I'd posted was nonsense. 

Oops,
BDL


----------



## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

I've never heard of it as a pie or pudding. It's usually a chocolate cake with a false origin story. ( http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/cookie.asp ) I suspect someone used the ideas of the cake in the pudding you had.

Phil


----------



## fitcook (Jul 12, 2008)

Thank you so much for your replies. 
So you think there is away to make a red velvet sponge cake? somehow to combine the flavors of the red velvet with the cream cheese frosting? 

If you anyone has any additional recipes you may suggest , feel free to let me know.


----------



## izbnso (May 12, 2007)

Let me take a stab at it…..

I'm aware of the myths and stories, and regional variations. So lets just all agree that red velvet is most often a cake with coco powder included (I hesitate to call it a chocolate cake because the red velvet recipes I have seen don't call for as much coco powder as a bona fide chocolate cake) and enough red food coloring to kill a large bovine .
The red velvet cakes I have made all contain buttermilk, have that twangy taste and are traditionally iced with cream cheese icing. (I do a bourbon cream cheese icing and garnish with pecans)

So how to turn this into a pie?????
First off, I prefer tarts to pies, because removable bottom tart pans are my friend. Easier to serve and slice. But if pie you want, pie you shall have.

How about taking a buttermilk pie recipe (they abound on the net) adding in a touch of coco powder or ground chocolate and the 47 ounces of red food color. Maybe a chocolate crust, maybe not, possibly a nut crumb crust.
Bake that and cool.
Then instead of cream cheese icing, make a cream cheese butter cream and treat it kind of like a standard meringue topping and pipe it on. It should set up firm if you chill it, so that you can mound it on, yet still slice it clean when you are ready to serve.


----------



## izbnso (May 12, 2007)

Geeze, I'm as bad as BDL :crazy:. So buttermilk pie didn't have enough twang….

Cut the sugar a little in the buttermilk pie and add some goat cheese to it as well. Nothing does twang like goat cheese.


----------



## tessa (Sep 9, 2007)

the amount of red foodcolouring that goes in to this scares me silly
if you want it sour what about using some cranberry and less food colouring, so you still get the red and the zingy sour taste 

now i could be talking through a hole out back as its not a cake we have here very often but im sure the cranberries would give great colour as well as flavour


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

I might as well give my stupid idea. I was thinking of pulling the poppy seeds and the lemon zest out of an oil/pudding lemon poppy-seed cake and adding a little cocoa, a handful of macerated frozen raspberries along with their juice and an ounce or two of red food coloring. Then, after baking and before frosting, soaking it with some liqueur. 

I mean if you want gooey that falls between cake and pudding, that ought to do 'er. My feeling is that the citrus will give you more zip than buttermilk. FWIW, I'd consider orange zest and raspberry or orange liqueur because of the affinity orange and raspberry have for chocolate and eachother, and the affinity lemon has for raspberry. If you're not into scratch baking, you could even go with a Duncan Heinz cake mix and doctor it with the cocoa, zest, fruit, pudding, oil and liqueur. There are plenty of pudding/oil bundt cake recipes that can give you the right proportions for your doctoring. At any rate, you'll end up with something sufficiently cake-like to frost. 

What my stupid idea isn't is a cream pie -- is that what you seek? If so, the place to start (duh) is with the custard. I suppose I'd try working with white chocolate, because you'll never get a cocoa flavored custard to look red. Puce maybe. Again, I'd eschew (gezundheit!) the buttermilk for other sources of sour. I've got raspberries and oranges on the brain. But whatever you like with chocolate is something you're going to like with chocolate.

Another idea is a cheesecake. "Red Velvet Cheesecake." Hmmm. Yep, that's what I'd do. Definitely. Again with the white chocolate -- which should let you get to red or reddish fairly easily. Add a little food coloring and some raspberry puree to the filling. Or even just swirl the puree through. Red Velvet Swirl Cheesecake. Garnish with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. Now we're talking. I'm getting hungry.

You know, red velvet cake got its color from the interaction of the acid (buttermilk and/or vinegar) used to potentiate the baking soda in old fashioned cake recipes with the cocoa they used in the pre-dutch-process days. If nothing else, this should let you know that the original red velvets were light (baking soda, remember) rather than rich. What did they know?

BDL


----------



## tessa (Sep 9, 2007)

just a question BDL why does it have so much red colour in it, whats the reasoning behind that and surely it must change the taste horribly
and didnt the original author say something about raspberries?... so if they didnt use raspberries what about red currants


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

It has red color because it always had red color. The recipe probably originated in the American south, in the days before baking powder and dutch-process chocolate. As I said, the interaction of the acid used to potentiate the bicarb used for leavening, with the old fashioned cocoa resulted in a red cake. 

So, red velvet cake is red. 

Old fashioned food coloring had a less unpleasant taste than modern dyes. It would kill you yes. But it tasted fine. They had their priorities straight, back then. So, post dutch-process but still old fashioned recipes have a lot of coloring. to take care of the aforesaid dutch-process cocoa.

Now we've got safe food coloring and dutch process cocoa, which leaves us stuck in a bit of a bind. Face it, fruit juice isn't going to wrestle cocoa to the mat. The best you're going to get out of it is something unpleasant looking. Your true Southern cook would never let a little thing like the nasty taste of two ounces of food coloring get in her way when she could mask it with a ton of frosting. However, we appear to be looking at something that won't support a lot of delicious now with zero transfat Crisco based frosting. That's why I suggested moving away from cocoa to white chocolate. Different flavor -- but red velvet is hardly intensely chocolate anyway. 

BDL


----------



## izbnso (May 12, 2007)

Tessa,
47 ounces was a joke, but it does take a lot of red food coloring.
BDL is right the red velvet cake probably originated in the American South. However, there is some debate on that. There is even some debate as to the color ever coming from the chemical reaction at all. We need to find us a chemist to be for sure.

As a true Belle of the South (I actually owned and wore regularly a hoop skirt at one time) , I can tell you that food coloring has long been used for strange purposes in Dixie. I have no idea why, no one has ever been able to give me a good answer.

However, I vividly recall my maternal grandmother working hard on a from scratch pound cake (she didn't have an electric mixer until the 1980's) only to add in an entire bottle of liquid yellow food coloring to the batter as her signature touch. Key lime pies from certain regions are electric green and many a lady used to use various shades of food coloring to zip up their preserves (both sweet and savory).

We is what we is down here (or up here in Tessa's case).

I thought about the cheese cake version myself, but that would put the cream cheese in it, not on it.
I have never, ever seen fruit used in a red velvet cake. Never heard of it either. That would make it borderline healthy, for goodness sake.
Trust me Boar D Laze, you can get that custard red enough. If you are willing to use one of the larger bottles of Wilton No Taste Red gel food coloring. Disgusting, but true. Keep in mind that the color of red velvet cake isn't primary red, it is deep blood red. (Remember the groom's cake in Steel Magnolias that was red velvet and shaped like an armadillo.)
Just so we're all clear, I hate red velvet cake. But I have made umpteen million of them for clients, and I never could get them to understand that food coloring was really the only thing that made it "special".
Two of the "classic" Southern "fancy" cakes that I am always called upon to make are red velvet and caramel cake. I'm told mine are excellent, but I am no fan of either variety. 
Shameless plug alert: Read the review on _A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ in the cook book reviews section of the forum, and use the link to Amazon if you want to buy it. It really is a very insightful book on Southern Cooking. It isn't the end all be all, Southern cooking is too diverse, but it is rather good.


----------



## tessa (Sep 9, 2007)

yeah i know you dont put that size bottle red colouring its at least a 46.6 oz right :lol::lol::lol:
i have seen lots of different recipes for it and seen it on tv , i think paula deen made it once, and i have actually seen it in real life , but when i read the recipes it was making me gag seeing how much food colouring was going in , i make cakes myself so know about how the food colour works and coming from a place where food colouring generally isnt used in the actual cakes so much, i just cant imagine how much it must change the taste and scare the bejeebies out of a person when they have to go to the bathroom the next day:blush::blush::blush:


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Yep

Trust me.

 True, but why not? She wanted a puddingish thing. To me that means custard. And is there a better custard than cheesecake? I think not.

  I know. That's a problem for sure. I'm still trying to get the red in it. But it's not my fault. she brought up raspberries first.

  I hate it too, if it's any consolation. However, a white chocolate/ raspberry swirl cheesecake is something I can live with.

You bet,
BDL


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

How the fonts?  How?

BDL


----------



## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

If you've got orange and chocolate on the brain, use some naranja agria. That should be sour enough.

And the bitter with the chocolate should be good too.

pHil


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Yes. Good point. Love sour orange, and have some in the fridge now that you mention it. For anyone who doesn't, orange and lemon do about the same thing, and orange-lime closer still. I'm wondering about blood orange and lemon as a way of getting the sour-orange combination and pushing the "red-velvet" color. Downsides -- blood orange is expensive and trendy.

Orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit juices mixed with some sugar, some white rum and Pusser's Rum makes a "Navy Grog." The dark rum spoils the looks of the citrus juices, but there are worse things in life.

BDL


----------



## just jim (Oct 18, 2007)

How about a chocolate cream pie, with some red dye, but then dye some graham crackers red for the crust.
As far as the twang, I'd try lightly sweetened sour cream for a topping.
I used to do that for fruit tarts with great success.

Red Velvet cakes I have had always had a sweet cake with the tangy white topping.


----------



## izbnso (May 12, 2007)

BDL,
You will get no argument from me that cheese cake is the pinnacle of custards. And a tart/sour raspberry swirl cheese cake sounds scrumptious, but it doesn't sound like anything I would put the "red velvet" label on.

I just can't reconcile the idea of the cream cheese being incorporated into the body of the dessert and still calling it red velvet cake/pie/pudding, given that red velvet cake (admittedly, in its modern day manifestation) is all about the color contrast between the cake and the frosting and only marginally about the sweet of the frosting with the sour of the cake. The reason I never cared for red velvet is precisely because it's about the look over the flavor. Yeah Sugar, it's a Southern thang. "Our ability to accessorize is what separates us from the animals."

Of course all of that could just be my skewed and slightly bent regional perception of red velvet, we are a stubborn lot.:crazy:

The cheese cake idea got me thinking about spring form pans. I have a flourless chocolate "cake" recipe I use a lot (especially for the gluten free people) that is essentially just a chocolate custard baked in a spring form pan with no crust.
1 pound chocolate 
1 pound butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
9 eggs
1 ½ TBS vanilla
Everything but the eggs and vanilla get melted on the stove top. Remove from heat and temper in eggs, add vanilla. Pour into a greased 10 inch spring form pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, until set.

The kind of chocolate I use varies. I have used everything from extra dark to white and even once used Reese's peanut butter chips. 

So what if we take your white chocolate idea and apply it here, but also incorporate some unsweetened chocolate, not a lot but just enough to provide a tad of flavor and a darker base color so that things don't go all pink.
 The 1 cup of cream could be replaced with buttermilk or not. Possibly a portion could be pureed raspberries or any of the other fruits you mentioned to add the sour flavor, even though the fruit addition is slightly out of character (but then again, we are sort of re-inventing the wheel here). And surely there is some way of incorporating some vinegar if necessary. Even with the natural color of a fruit addition it still might take some food coloring to get it to traditional red velvet color.
The sugar might need some adjustment as well. Maybe cut out completely or just way down to allow the sourness to come through. The sweetness of the white chocolate alone could be enough. I think the reason that she didn't have success with the buttermilk pie version is because buttermilk pies typically call for a lot of sugar.

I still think it needs some sort of cream cheese topping and a powdered sugar frosting is all wrong for this in my opinion. And the baked custard is so dense I would prefer something with a lighter consistency. So I'm going back to the cream cheese butter cream. But Jim's sour cream topping sounds intriguing.

Scaled down it might still work in a pie shell, giving her the pie she was questing for.

What do you think?


----------



## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Iz,

That's very much along the lines I was thinking. If she could bear some granularity I think I'd make the custard with a mix of ricotta (lightens things up considerably) and cream cheese and white chocolate,and the other usual cheesecake suspects; then swirl in something intensely red and a bit chocolatesque to get the red/white contrast while holding the mild chocolate/sour balance. I think a fruit compliment in the swirl for color and to bring out the chocolate a bit would be nice.

The distinction between normal red velvet and plain white cake, besides color, is a little grain and taste from the cocoa. "A little" as in "not much." I realize that my take drifts farther from "real red velvet" than yours. But not being from the South, I have no obligation. At any rate, I like your idea and think you should bake two, and send one to me for evaluation. Of course we'll defer to (your) DH and (my) SWMBO for the final judgment. This is a lot of fun, but getting very complicated. It would be helpful to hear from fitcook before testing, perfecting and writing anything.

BDL


----------



## fitcook (Jul 12, 2008)

Okaay... That sounds like a fabulous idea to try a flourless chocolate cake- add buttermilk and even vinegar for the twangy sourness, and try a cream cheese frosting and or jims sour cream topping....
I dont need a pie crust at all, and honestly, think i"ll be better without.

I tried a buttermilk pie without adding anything, adn you are right. WAY too much sugar and I was let down with no strong sourness. 
So I may try a flourless chocolate buttermilk pie reducing sugar and adding a sour cream/cream cheese topping( like a garnish for cheesecakes)
Or I'll try a red velvet cheesecake- basically a reduced sugar sour chocolate cheesecake. 


I've been given such great ideas! Thank you all... 
I'll keep you informed on what comes about...
To begin my cheesecake recipe, What is the best basic most SOUR cheesecake recipe anyone has come across?


----------

