Red velvet cake is surrounded by more folklore than most any other cake in our modern-day repertoire. Why not? It’s a good story. The eye-catching confection rose to prominence through an ingenious marketing ploy designed during the Great Depression by John A. Adams of food coloring purveyor Adams Extract Company. As sales were dipping drastically, Adams set up prominent grocery store displays over several states offering customers a red velvet cake recipe and two bottles of Adams red food dye with every purchase. Needless to say, it worked.
Every year, around Feb. 14, the popularity of this eye-popping cake comes spiking back up. But there’s been an indisputable complaint with the cake over the decades: “It’s too bland.”
James Beard himself believed the cake to be “uninteresting, with a flavor too subtle to stand up to its intense color.” It’s not really chocolate cake, but it’s not quite vanilla, either. It’s just red.
That’s where the espresso comes in. It matches perfectly with the trace chocolate and vanilla and adds a punch of rich flavor plus moisture galore. If you don’t have an espresso machine, coffee brewed at double strength will do the trick. I tried this version with a French Press of Caffé Appassionato’s five-country Appassionato Blend—dark enough to match the cocoa powder, nuanced enough to add interest. Bake it for dessert after Valentine’s Day dinner.
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, melted
2 cups sugar
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
¼ cup espresso or hot, double-strength coffee
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
6 eggs
½ bottle red food coloring (more if desired)
2½ cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Plus: recipe of your favorite cream cheese frosting; sprinkles or colored sugar to garnish.
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar, cocoa powder, coffee and vanilla and beat for two minutes or until thoroughly combined. Beat in eggs, two at a time. Add food coloring and stir by hand until ingredients are brilliantly red.
In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to mixing bowl and stir carefully until just incorporated. Pour into two round, well-greased cake pans and bake for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into each cake’s center comes out clean.
Remove each cake from its pan and allow both layers to cool on a rack for two hours. Use your favorite cream cheese frosting between layers and to cover the cake. Optional: sprinkle pink-colored granulated sugar or Valentine’s sprinkles over the cake. Let cool overnight. Serve with coffee, of course. Happy Valentine’s Day!
