Red Velvet Cake/other Southern cakes

[timothycdavis]

Hello all...

I'm doing a story for a travel mag on Southern Cakes (and/or cakes popular in this part of the country). Specifically, I was wondering if the great folks that frequent this site would mind offering up their favorite Southern restaurants serving these beauts:

1. red velvet cake

2. coconut cake

3. mississippi mud cake

However, I'm also interested in any Southern cakes you may be fond of, and the restaurants that do the best job of serving them. Alternately, for those board-shy, you may contact me at timothy.davis@cln.com.

thanks!

Tim

[Zeb A]

The coconut cake at Hayes Barton Cafe & Dessertery in Raleigh, NC is incredible. In fact, they offer an array of cakes, and nearly every one that I have tried has been very good. The coconut cake is their signature cake.

[Gifted Gourmet]

However, I'm also interested in any Southern cakes you may be fond of, and the restaurants that do the best job of serving them.

One of the all time local cakes here in Atlanta which is exceptionally southern in inspiration, (God, it just sounds soooo southern too!), is the Hummingbird Cake ... actually, vaguely reminiscent of carrot cake in some of its ingredients and topped with a cream cheese frosting ... I can just visualize sitting on mah daddy's verandah and downing a piece of this, a Dickel Bourbon, with the honeysuckle bloomin' and the skeeters buzzing around mah head... Can you spell cloyingly sweet??

served locally at a number of restaurants ... or even made lovingly at home for Easter:

http://southernfood.about.com/library/print99/n90321d.htm

Edited March 22, 2004 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[sml311]

MMMMMM...the Hummingbird. I knew that looked familiar...my mom has the KY Derby Cookbook. Maybe I'll make it for their visit this weekend....

SML

[Gifted Gourmet]

Yet another southern favorite is Oatmeal Cake with Penuche Frosting ...

a whole mess of Pineapple Upside Down Cakes ... very popular ...

anything with pralines.....

The sugar volume is always uniformly high .... a delight to the local dental societies!

I feel the need for a jolt of insulin about now ....

[Varmint]

Pig Pickin' cake has coconut and mandarin oranges in it, I believe. Banana cake and caramel cake are two other Southern standards.

I'll check my wife's grandmother's book of recipes, as they're loaded with lots of cake recipes.

[balmagowry]

Call me ignorant on this subject and you'll be right - but I was surprised to see Red Velvet Cake referred to as Southern. My ex-husband used to make it (it was just about the only thing he knew how to cook, but that's another story...), and he always said it originated at the Waldorf. Not that I place any special credence in anything he said! but I don't think he had enough imagination to have made it up, so if it isn't true I wonder where he got the idea.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Omigawd, forgetting the Southern Mississippi (oft times Texas) Fruitcake with lots of southern bourbon ... and the now infamous Claxton Fruitcake ....

http://southernfood.about.com/library/rec97/bl1130d.htm

a bit more on the origin of Red Velvet Cake for balmagowry:

http://southernfood.about.com/cs/chocolate...velvet_cake.htm

as well as some horrific sounding cakes also listed here for your edification, Timothy C. Davis (aren't you sorry you even asked?? )

Edited March 22, 2004 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[timothycdavis]

As far as I've been able to tell, the only connection between Red Velvet Cake and the Waldorf is this oft-repeated "urban legend." Frankly, I'm not sure anyone knows for sure, but it's awful popular here.

(edited for repetition)

Edited March 22, 2004 by timothycdavis (log)

[slbunge]

K-Paul's in New Orleans is somewhat famous for their fresh coconut cake. You must request it when you reserve and even then they cannot guarantee that it will be available. I requested the cake while there this past October but, alas, they couldn't find coconut that was up to their standards so it was not available. Both hosts and the server were aware of our order and went out of their way to apologize and suggest a suitable alternative.

Just curious, is red velvet cake chocolate?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Just curious, is red velvet cake chocolate?

Nominally chocolate, but in all the recipes I have seen, they call for a mere 2 TBSP or even 2 teaspoons of cocoa ...

The amount of red food coloring, on the other hand, is usually one quarter cup!!!

Scary!

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/food_history/red_velvet.html

who else but David Leite???

Edited March 22, 2004 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[balmagowry]

a bit more on the origin of Red Velvet Cake for balmagowry:

http://southernfood.about.com/cs/chocolate...velvet_cake.htm

Thank you kindly! Yes, I went off and checked it on Snopes, too, and found substantially the same story. Curiously, though, there's nothing in either of these stories that disputes the association of the cake with the Waldorf - the only point debunked is the part about the sale of the recipe.

Plot thickens!

As far as I've been able to tell, the only connection between Red Velvet Cake and the Waldorf is this oft-repeated "urban legend." Frankly, I'm not sure anyone knows for sure, but it's awful popular here.

I'm not sure either (hey, and I said I was ignorant!), but now I'm curious. There's got to be some way to find out. I bet there are records at, or from, or available through, the Waldorf. They have to have published a cookbook or so in their time. I may just have to investigate further.

[balmagowry]

Just curious, is red velvet cake chocolate?

Nominally chocolate, but in all the recipes I have seen, they call for a mere 2 TBSP or even 2 teaspoons of cocoa ...

The amount of red food coloring, on the other hand, is usually one quarter cup!!!

Scary!

It's several years since I tasted it or saw a recipe - and again, all this via the not necessarily reliable ex - but I do remember there being enough chocolate flavor to take it slightly beyond the nominal. The red food color, however, I can certainly vouch for! Also, to be fair (if I must), I do remember it looking pretty much like the picture on the David Leite page. I also remember it being extremely dense, and the frosting being unusually rich - all in all, rather cloying.

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/food_history/red_velvet.html

who else but David Leite???

Yup. But to keep beating the same dead horse as before - the story is consistent with the other two. No, we haven't seen any proof that the cake came from the Waldorf, but we also haven't seen any evidence whatsoever to the contrary.

It maketh me to think, so it doth.

Edited March 22, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

Just think of this: a thread in which the word "cloying" seems to reoccur .... never saw it before here at eGullet .... daresay I won't again too soon!

Oh, yes, it is about all things southern, duh!! (smacks head!)

Wasn't there a big brouhaha about red dye #2 some years back? and this amount of red food coloring can not be healthy, can it??

[balmagowry]

Just think of this: a thread in which the word "cloying" seems to reoccur .... never saw it before here at eGullet .... daresay I won't again too soon!

Don't be too sure. I'm here now, after all....

Wasn't there a big brouhaha about red dye #2 some years back? and this amount of red food coloring can not be healthy, can it??

Well, one could always go authentic and substitute cochineal! I've got a big jar of it around here somewhere (2 oz. is a big jar if it's full of little indelible beetle carcases...), and I don't have a whole lot of call for it, these days.

Meanwhile, here is some potential progress on the Waldorf front. There is indeed a cookbook, published 1969; also a history of the hotel, published 1991. Whether either of these will contain the essential nugget of data remains to be seen; but at least it's an avenue to pursue. There doesn't seem to be a copy of either one, in either the Suffolk County or the NYPL library systems. But Schlesinger has them both, and I'd be surprised if Nach Waxman didn't have a copy of the cookbook. (Have yet to look at used book sources like ABE - that's next.)

EDIT: OK, found the cookbook via ABE. I wasn't going to buy it, I swear... but for 3 bucks, how could I not? Having it shipped priority, so may - or may not - know a little more in a few days.

Edited March 22, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[maggiethecat]

It's several years since I tasted it or saw a recipe

Hie thee, Dear Balma, to Recipe Gullet! You'll find two recipes therein:

Red Velvet Cake.

I have made Jaymes's, (twice.) Yum.

[hjshorter]

as well as some horrific sounding cakes also listed here for your edification, Timothy C. Davis (aren't you sorry you even asked?? )

I make a mean Chocolate Mayonnaise cake. Recipe from the Hellman's jar. It sounds gross, but it works.

And what about Coca-Cola cake? I only see that when I visit my sister in Charlotte.

[balmagowry]

It's several years since I tasted it or saw a recipe

Hie thee, Dear Balma, to Recipe Gullet! You'll find two recipes therein:

Oy, dahlink, thank you, but... under the circumstances I can't think of anything I would have less desire to make! I won't quite file it under the One Thing You Won't Eat thread, but suffice it to say my associations with this particular cake are not of the happiest. (Wonder if #4 is as sick of it yet as I became.... )

Nah, I think for now I gonna confine my red-velvetude to researching the is-it-is- or is-it-ain't-ness of the urban legend. (Oh! WRM, gotta trot over to the cookbook tally and enter this latest acquisition - plus a couple of others. Naughty....)

But thank you all the same.

[Gifted Gourmet]

And to further complicate our lives as innocent consumers of food colourings (how veddy British of me!), comes this shocker right outta de headlines:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2684584

not trying to curry favour with you eGulleteers but ....can't we just enjoy food au naturel??

and would this cake be henceforth known simply as Velvet Cake? Is that such a bad thing? Sounds sensual and erotically appealing ....

[Gifted Gourmet]

While reading this particular thread, I realized it needs a musical accompaniment to truly achieve maximum enjoyment for all of the senses ....

see what you think ...

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~manics/Poetry/DixiesLand.htm

[kpurvis]

Call me ignorant on this subject and you'll be right - but I was surprised to see Red Velvet Cake referred to as Southern.

I'd have to agree. I think this is another example of Southerners making a dish and then claiming it as our own. For reference, check out the piece that Jane Snow did in the Akron Beacon Journal within the last month or so -- it was on Red Velvet Cake as an Ohio "thing."

[Carolyn Tillie]

a bit more on the origin of Red Velvet Cake for balmagowry:

http://southernfood.about.com/cs/chocolate...velvet_cake.htm

Thank you kindly! Yes, I went off and checked it on Snopes, too, and found substantially the same story. Curiously, though, there's nothing in either of these stories that disputes the association of the cake with the Waldorf - the only point debunked is the part about the sale of the recipe.

Plot thickens!

Ah, the story surfaces again...

I, too, was led to believe it was a $10,000 Red Waldorf Cake, but juicier still, when I was married, I was told it was my husband's Great Aunt Beatrice who asked for the recipe and paid $10,000 for the recipe.

Probably why I divorced out of the family, these people SWORE it really happened to Aunt Beatrice!!! (I asked to see the cancelled check!)

[Comfort Me]

WHile we're on the subject of Southern desserts, does anyone have a kickass recipe for Dr. Pepper cake? Man, I love that cake -- moist, sweet, with a cooked-flour and crisco frosting. I would love to make it again and relive happy moments from my childhood.

[balmagowry]

Probably why I divorced out of the family

Aha! A woman after my own heart. Do we detect a recurring theme here? The office of the Surgeon General has determined that Red Velvet Cake on the husband's side may be dangerous to your marriage?

I rest my case.

[Marlene]

It's several years since I tasted it or saw a recipe

Hie thee, Dear Balma, to Recipe Gullet! You'll find two recipes therein:

Red Velvet Cake.

I have made Jaymes's, (twice.) Yum.

Beat me to it Miss Maggie