Experimenting w/Red Velvet cake using Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa

[laurafromtx]

I made this cake last week for a potluck at work - it turned out very well, considering it wasn't that big a risk.

I substituted the same amount of the Special Dark Cocoa for the usual standard cocoa (3 Tblsp) and it definitely had a more chocolatey flavor. The color was a much deeper red too, but still noticeably red because I went ahead and used the 2 oz red food coloring.

I topped it with my favorite French Buttercream (The Cake Bible recipe using only egg yolks) instead of the cooked Mary Kay icing or a cream cheese icing.

This may become my standard Christmas cake - I so LOVE red velvet!

[2sdae]

Sounds very very yummy. Thanks for the heads up on using dark cocoa!

[2sdae]

I did it and it was awesome!!!!!!!

[laurafromtx]

Glad you liked it!

I love Red Velvet cake at Christmas time, although I've also tinted it other colors too. I've even made a couple of checkerboard cakes with 2 colors of the cake - one time was a blue and yellow checkerboard for my nephew's Boy Scout cake auction, and a red and green checkerboard for another Christmas potluck. I was really happy with both of them.

Which gets me thinking - now that I've discovered the Americolor gel food coloring, I think I could really make some awesome color combo checkerboards. I wonder if I could get pink and purple to turn out? Hmmmm.........

[2sdae]

I have done a pink and purple and it was really cool!