Story behind the origin of Red velvet cake

Red Velvet, a traditional red and brown layer cake topped with white cream cheese, commonly served on Christmas, Valentine’s Day and wedding ceremony. The main ingredients are flour, butter, sugar, buttermilk, cocoa powder, cream cheese icing and beetroot or red food colouring.

There’s always a debate about its origin but no one really knows exactly about it.  A story began circulating around United States in 1920s about a cake that supposed was served at a restaurant in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It appeared in Jan Brunvand’s book, The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Because of this story and few similar variations, the Red Velvet cake is also known as Waldorf-Astoria cake.

There’s also a scientific myth regarding red velvet. It has been said that the cake’s red colour is due to a chemical reaction between the baking soda and the chocolate in the recipe. It’s just a misunderstanding of chemical reaction. While cocoa powder contain anthocyanins (red vegetable pigment), they only turn red in presence of acid otherwise turns blue-green in presence of base.