Memories of The Grill Room: Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake

Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of attending the 40th wedding anniversary of two dear friends. One of their daughters had baked the cakes for the celebration lunch: delicious banana cakes. She said she had wanted to make Red Velvet Cake for the occasion (ruby red for the 40th anniversary), but they didn’t work out for her. I told her I had a recipe for Red Velvet Cake and here it is for you, Synove, with a story to go with it, of course.

I was introduced to Red Velvet Cake when I was a kid. It was the treat at the end of many a downtown shopping trip with my nana. (Yes, we went downtown to shop, everybody did. We even took the bus.) Most of the time, we choose our coveted slice from the dessert section of Eaton’s cafeteria, but once in awhile we enjoyed the finer dining experience of Eaton's Grill Room. This recipe produces the cake that I remember.

Like many of the other recipes I share on this blog, I’ve had this one in my wooden recipe box for a long time and don’t know exactly where it originated. At one time, I made it frequently, but then got away from it. In recent years, Red Velvet Cake has enjoyed a huge resurgence in popularity. There are plenty of recipes and debate about its origin online. I read an interesting article about this cake at the Sand and Feathers blog.

This is an impressive looking scratch cake baked in three layers. I only had two 8” round baking pans available, so I used an 8” springform pan for one of the layers, and it worked just fine.

You could use a cream cheese frosting on this cake. However, the frosting recipe given here is closest to what I remember of the Eaton’s Red Velvet Cake. It calls for granulated white sugar although I have seen similar frosting recipes that use confectioners or icing sugar. It’s a little grittier in texture with the granulated, but it’s the texture I’ve come to prefer. Whichever frosting you go with, make sure you cool the cakes completely. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to refrigerate them and frost them out right out of the fridge. And, be sure to brush the crumbs off the cake before frosting, so the red stays red and the white stays white. Of course, the white frosting is a perfect canvas for decoration, but the dramatic contrast between the red and the white when you slice into the layers has always been striking enough for me.

MA’s Red Velvet Cake

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Grease and flour 3 – 8-inch round baking pans and place a sheet of parchment paper inside the bottom of each pan for easy removal of the cakes. 

Setting up to make the cakes

½ cup butter
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 oz. red food colouring
2 heaping tbsp cocoa
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk or soured milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vinegar

Cream the butter, sugar and eggs.

Cool completely and brush off crumbs before frosting

Make a paste of the food colouring and cocoa and add it to the creamed mixture.

Sift together the flour and salt. Add to the creamed mixture, alternating with the buttermilk.

Add vanilla.

Blend in the soda and vinegar.

Pour the batter into prepared pans.

Bake 24 to 34 minutes or until tester inserted in centre of each cake comes out clean.

Cool on rack. For further cooling and to make frosting the cake easier, cakes can be refrigerated for one to two hours.

Frost with Frosting for Red Velvet Cake.

Store frosted cake in refrigerator. Can be served cold or brought to room temperature.

Printable Recipe for MA's Red Velvet Cake

MA’s Frosting for Red Velvet Cake

Cook flour and milk until very thick

2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

In a double boiler or in a bowl set over boiling water, cook the flour and milk, stirring constantly with lots of love, until very thick. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Cream together the sugar, butter and vanilla until very fluffy.

Add the cooled flour and milk mixture to the

Mix until frosting is consistency of whipped cream

creamed mixture and mix until well blended. The frosting will be the constituency of whipped cream.

Makes enough frosting to fill and frost the side and top of one 3-layer cake.

Printable Recipe for MA's Frosting for Red Velvet Cake

Delicious Red Velvet Cake