Red Velvet Valentine’s Cake

Valentine’s Day is almost here and I’d like to dedicate this Red Velvet Cake to my husband. We’ve been married for more than 30 years and I’m thankful for his humor, intelligence and his companionship.

After all, I went out of my way to track down a heart-shaped cake pan – that must say something about our relationship!

A Red Velvet Cake is basically a chocolate flavored cake with red food coloring: you’ll get a deep reddish-brown cake that will hopefully set fire to your special loved one’s passion on Valentine’s Day. The recipe also typically calls for buttermilk and a splash of vinegar (although no cause for alarm- you won’t notice the vinegar)!

Where did the recipe for Red Velvet Cake come from? Word has it that it was invented during the 1930’s Great Depression by the Adam’s Extract Company in the U.S. In order to counteract slumping sales of their food coloring products, they offered this recipe on free recipe cards handed out at supermarkets. It was a big success and later had a resurgence in popularity caused by the appearance of the cake (shaped like an Armadillo) in the 1989 movie Steel Magnolias.

Cream cheese icing goes well with this cake, although I decided to use a simple Meringue icing, embellished with some sliced strawberries in the center of the cake. You can either bake the cake in one large cake tin and then slice it horizontally in half, as I have done here with my heart-shaped cake. Or you can bake the cake in two separate round 20 cm (8 inch) cake pans.

Meringue icing and sliced strawberries placed on base layer of the cake

In order to photograph my cake, I found some velvet material I had used over 25 years ago to make my little daughter a velveteen dress. How fortunate that I had kept the material after all these years!