Red velvet cake with raspberries instead of food coloring or beets?

[UNlucky66]

Hi! I'm new to this site, and I noticed that a lot of people had some very helpful suggestions in this thread. My quandry is that I am on a quest to make a red velvet cake without any food coloring, or beets. I did try doing it with the beets before, and I found that the recipe I used did two things: 1. they were more purplish than red (maybe because I used dutch processed cocoa), and 2. they had a rather earthy taste to them. Not that that was terrible, and my friends liked it, but I really wanted it to have a sweeter taste. So, I thought that possibly using either strawberries, or raspberries would be a better alternative. Any suggestions?

 

[Andy M.]

The early red velvet cake recipes used neither food coloring or beets/berries.

Search for a recipe the uses vinegar. The vinegar reacts with the other ingredients to make the red color. It's not a bright red as it is with food coloring.

Other than the color, it's just chocolate cake.

 

[UNlucky66]

Would it be white wine vinegar that I would be using, or possibly red?

 

[Andy M.]

I'm not sure. Probably white. Look for a recipe. It's not the color of the vinegar that causes the color.

 

[Alix]

Not any kind of WINE vinegar. Just regular white vinegar. Plain old acetic acid.

 

[Andy M.]

Good catch, Alix. I missed that.