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red velvet cake. all natural. no red dye.
This cake ended up being a science experiment.
I wanted to make a red velvet cake without any red food coloring. Though I can handle a little food coloring here and there, the idea of putting in such large amounts into a homemade cake . . . well, I just couldn’t do it. I mean, why would I want to eat a cake that is red for no reason, other than the fact that someone calls it red?
In my research, and the research of my sister (who actually inspired my making this cake after she had made an attempt at something similar), we discovered a number of people in the blogosphere that get quite uppity about what a red velvet cake is and isn’t. I won’t get into that. But I will say that many of these red velvet soap boxers were suggesting the color should come from beets.
So I started there.
My first attempt was brownish purplish. My daughter called it the Purple Satin Cake. It tasted good, so good in fact, that when I stood there, holding the last piece, thinking that I should snap a picture for the blog to show what it looked like, my will power buckled, and into my mouth it went. But it was still brownish purplish.
I spent the next few days reading other blogs and websites. Amy, from BakeCakery*, had a recipe that was a great starting point. From her post, I could see that it could be done. Then, with the help of her descriptions, beet cooking methods, and links to other bloggers, I was able to piece together the science I needed to get a red cake. Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t seen her blog yet, she is extremely talented you should definitely take a look.. She has this tres leches cake that will amaze you.
Amy directed me over to bittersweetblog, where the writer painstakingly experimented with the pH levels in the cake, and how it affects color.
Armed with that knowledge, and before I dove in and wasted another couple pounds of ingredients, I put a small amount of beet puree into two small cups. Then I added different ingredients to each, to see if they would keep the color pink, or turn it purple. Once it turns purple, you see, you will be making the lovely Purple Satin Cake, instead. Which, sadly is more brown than purple.
The goal was to keep the pH as acidic as possible, with no additions of anything alkaline. So baking soda is obviously out. Anyone who has ever helped their kid with a model of a volcano for the science fair knows what I’m talking about. And then Dutch Process or Dark Cocoa powder is out, too. Apparently, chocolate is sometimes processed with alkali to make it smoother, so don’t add regular chocolate or melted chocolate chips, either. To achieve the chocolate taste, you can really only use natural cocoa powder. It’s easy enough to find, though. Hershey’s cocoa powder—as long as it’s not the Special Dark variety—works perfectly. (In the pictures, I used only two tablespoons of the cocoa powder, which kept things very red. If I were to make it again, though, I’d probably add as much as 4 tablespoons.)
Working with this knowledge, I took out my trusty old cream cheese pound cake recipe to use as a base, and created this cake. It’s moist, but dense, smooth, and has the exact crumb I was looking for. My kids loved it, even after I told them it was made with beets. They didn’t care. This cake was all they talked about for days. They wanted it after school, for breakfast, and dessert.
While I was frosting this, I kept thinking of Rosie and her blog Sweetapolita. Oh my goodness is that girl talented! And she has a beautiful family, and she’s an excellent photographer. She’s is the Queen of Cakes. Here are some of my favorite posts:
Her asparagus cake. Crazy beautiful.
This chocolate bundt cake is so stunning.
And her latest is a buttermilk cake with fudge frosting.
So if you’ve never seen her blog, make sure you go take a look.
For good measure, and based on Amy’s suggestion, I used quite a bit of lemon juice just to keep things as bright as possible. So keep these things in mind when you make your cake. Keep the acidity high, and the pH numbers low!!
*Earlier, I had said that Amy’s blog was called CakeBakery, when it is actually BakeCakery. Sorry, Amy! And sorry for any confusion!
all natural red velvet cake
2 large beets (enough for 1 1/2 cups puree)
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, but not quite room temperature
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened slightly
2 1/3 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
4 tablespoons natural (not dark or dutch processed) cocoa powder*
cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (165 degrees celsius). Place beets in a small baking dish and add a 1/2 cup of water. Cover with parchment paper and foil, and roast until quite tender, about 60-90 minutes. Allow to cool completely.
2. Butter 3 8 inch cake pans. Cut out parchment paper circles and place in the bottoms of the pans. Butter the parchment paper and dust with flour. Set aside. Peel the beets and cut into large chunks. Place in a food processor (or a very good blender) with the lemon juice, and pulse until smooth and pureed.** Stir in the vinegar.
3. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and cream cheese. Pour in sugar and mix until smooth. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing well until each is incorporated. Mix in vanilla.
4. While ingredients are mixing, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder in a separate bowl. Slowly add flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the beet puree mixture, and fold into the cake batter. Divide the batter evenly between the cake pans. Tap pans on the counter to remove any air bubbles.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. Invert cakes onto cooling racks, and allow to cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze until ready to frost.
*Some people have commented and said that their cake has turned out maroon in color, instead of the red like the picture. I just tested the recipe again, to see if I could recreate what happened. It could be the cocoa. In the photographs, I used only 2 tablespoons of cocoa because the red color was my main objective, not the chocolate flavor. So, if you’re more concerned about the color than the chocolate flavor, then just use 2 tablespoons of cocoa instead of the 1/4 cup.
**The other thing I discovered while testing it today, is that I didn’t make my puree as fine. In the pictures from last time, you can see that the texture of the beet puree is very smooth, almost like baby food. I think that may have affected the color. Each tiny piece of beet adds to the color, and if there’s more surface area surrounding each teeny tiny piece, then you’ll get a stronger red. I think.
cream cheese frosting
2 packages cream cheese, at room temperature
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Switch to the whisk attachment, and mix until smooth and slightly fluffy.
499 Responses to “red velvet cake. all natural. no red dye.”
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Good luck, Steph!! Let us know how it turns out!
Thanks! The cupcakes I made with the rest of the mix were super red and super yummy… The ladybird went more brown… So I covered it in dark chocolate and made it a love bug with white dots instead. Great recipe, thanks allot x
What about strawberries or cherries for the redness? Anyone ever play around with those?
Anyone ever try strawberries or cherries for the color?
Maggiemoo—I don’t know that you would get a full red color—maybe something more pink. But if you try it and it works out, let us know.
I have a question about your icing/frosting.
It’s very white – how is this possible ?
The recipe states you use real butter, real vanilla extract, real almond extract and some heavy cream – if all those ingredients are real as stated, there is no way your frosting will be as white as the pictures shown – it will be a cream color or soft beige, never stark white.
I’ve made hundreds of frosted cakes and the moment you introduce butter and/or real vanilla to the icing the color immediately shifts a few shades darker.
So, what is the trick/secret to your image ?
Someone asked me the same question when I first posted it. I did use everything real, just as you said. But where I live, and I don’t know if you live in the US, or not, our butter is really not THAT yellow–certainly not as dark as it is in England or Canada. Also, if you beat butter with sugar long enough, it can lighten the color of the butter. Then, since I only used a little bit of vanilla. The other factor here, of course, is the computer you’re viewing the pictures on. On my computer, the frosting looks pretty white, but certainly not as white as copy paper. And finally, it may have to do with the white balance on my camera. I think my camera must have thought off white was white. The cake plate I served the cake on was actually off white, but the camera red it as stark white. Does that help? I can email you a picture I took where the frosting looks really yellow, though.
My cream turned out pretty white. Not stark white but just a bit or cream color. I used all the ingredients in here, just added a little more heavy cream bc i like the taste of it in ceams.
Thank you for the recipe, I made it today after looking at your recipe today. I did modify it by adding buttermilk instead of cream cheese, (cream cheese was already set aside of a cheese cake). It turned out great, my family liked it, But I was thinking of next time of instead of using beets, if you bake the beets in the oven, using just the water (since it looks like red food coloring) and seeing if it changes anything. my cake turned out very moist and dense. I would like to see if I could add more fluff to it in the future. Again thank you for the natural recipe it was great.
So sad….the cake tasted great but I was going for the color RED. My son has a dye allergy and all he has asked for on his birthday was a RED CAKE! He’s three so I’m thankful it wasn’t a red car; but I followed the directions to the dot. After just over hours in the Kitchen, roughly $25 in new ingredients all I had was a very pretty caramel colored cake with a hint of red. I had to ditch this RED cake idea. I’m hoping to try raspberry concentrate and pray it doesn’t come out pink or purple!
Sorry it didn’t turn out the way you had hoped, Hard Working Momma.
Hello! Your cake looks wonderfully moist and beautiful. I am wondering if you have ever made this into cupcakes?
Kaylie—Yes, I have tried that. You just cook them for a little less time.
I tried it! The cake is dark red, almost maroon, making my mom’s Roux Frosting to top it
I love that this has no food dye. I really love red velvet cake, but I’m a little nervous about all of the dye that goes into it. I’m going to have to test this recipe out
Thanks, Meghan, and good luck.
Love that this recipie was generous enough for a full cake & a cupcake platter – So festive. The cake came out to a beautiful bright Merlot red & was delicious! A few Hints: if you’re using organic or turbinado sugar that’s a little more course “cream” the sugar ,butter, etc. mixture longer, until velety; Scrub beets well & add the water from the baking dish into the beet puree (it’s reduced & concentrated in the 90 mins of baking); a great balance on maintaining red color & chocolate flavor was 2 “Heaping” tablespoons of cocoa; and if you like a moist but fluffier cake like me, make your 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder “heaping” as well.
Thanks so much for helping to make a 12 year old’s Birthday special!
Cynthia—I can’t tell you how happy I am that your cake turned out well. Thank you so much for letting us know what you did, too! I know that will be helpful to a lot of the other readers.
And happy birthday to your 12-year-old!
Thankjs so much for the science behind this!
i was just wondering if you have a few recipes i can try fro red – velvet waffles?
if you do have thatare all-natural i would love!!
Thank you!
Karim—That’s a great idea. I’ll have to try making some other red velvet recipes this way.
Looks great! How long does the cake last? Does it need to be kept in the fridge? I am not very knowledgeable about cream cheese icing.
Hannah–Cream cheese icing is best left in the fridge, but I wouldn’t be too afraid to leave it out over night. Covered would probably be best, though. If you won’t be eating it within 24 hours, then you should probably refrigerate it.
I’m sure that it’s good, but it looks very dense. Are you sure that you couldn’t use baking powder since it already has an acidic component in it?
Kiara—the cake does have baking powder in it. The cream cheese makes it dense, and that is how I wanted the cake. If you’d like to make it less dense, you can swap the cream cheese with buttermilk. But any alkali whatsoever will turn the cake brown, so just make sure not to use baking soda.
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I have seen a recipe that used cranberries to get the red color.
How did the beet cake taste?
Or maybe a combination?
What terrific information you have, Jamie! I’ve been looking for just such a recipe. I work with families who eliminate food dyes, which can cause many behavior, learning and health problems. Not only are the dyes made from petroleum (ick) but they are allowed to be contaminated with toxins that include lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic!
There are a lot of “ADHD” kids who are simply reacting to petroleum-based food dyes.
You might know that Europe now requires foods with the dyes to carry warning labels. Check out our site for loads of info on how families can enjoy foods without petrochemicals. It’s at http://www.feingold.org.
Jane
Hi there! I need to make red icing, could i add the beet puree to the icing and still get red? has anyone had an experience with coloring icing? i would love to make red, green and blue. thanks!
Tara—I think the beet puree in the frosting would result in a bright pink. If you’re looking to create the other colors, you could try India Tree at http://indiatree.com/ They have some all-natural food coloring.
Thanks, Jane! I will check that out!
I liked the beets because they didn’t have too strong of a flavor. It was almost like eating carrot cake or something. The cranberries would be beautiful for making a red cake, but I think for red velvet, it might end up tasting too fruity, but it would certainly be worth a shot. Good luck!
Looking forward to trying this cake, it looks like a wonderfully moist and delicious treat. Thanks for sharing. Red cake is my favorite and now prefer not to use the food colorings…..
My wife and I are making this recipe as a batch of cupcakes. First off, let me say that the batter tasted awesome and the first test cupcake was the best tasting red velvet cupcake I’ve eaten. Here’s what we did successfully: we used organic, whole wheat pastry flour… we always do in our baking (I should say ‘she’ since my wife does 99% of the baking while I am more the dinner chef around here!). We also fell 1/2 short on the beet puree, so we added the 3 – 4 tablespoons of “red food coloring” I had reserved from the beets. We also used the full 4 tablespoons of process dutch cocoa, because we like chocolaty cupcakes.
I know it’s not really healthy because it has 2 1/3 cups of sugar in it, but we keep telling ourselves these are the healthiest cupcakes we’ve ever made!!
that’s 1/2 CUP short on the beet puree! sorry
John—Glad you liked the cupcakes! WIth each slice of it we ate, we kept telling ourselves it was healthy, too. Even without the whole wheat pastry flour.
Would it taste good if you strained some raspberries and put in like 2 tablespoons in of the color, because we can’t have beets or food coloring. Any other Ideas?
Ms. Baker
Ms. Baker—I really don’t know. You’ll have to try it out and let us know.
I tried this recipe with not much “red” success either the first time. I was looking over the recipe trying to figure out what I might have done wrong and I realized that it calls for unbleached flour. @ first I assumed it was just a personal flour preference and then I did a little bit of research and discovered that unbleached flour has a lower PH than bleached!!! I am so excited to get to the store tomorrow and get some unbleached flour and try this recipe again! Maybe that will be the key to this gorgeous dye free cake! *crossing fingers*
Neher Confection—My fingers are crossed for you! I hope it works. Please let us know how it works out!
I made this cake and just took it out of the oven, I followed the directions to a T and it came out purple. Not brown purple just purple.
Hi – I just made one with beets, but I didn’t use the juice.
This works: scrub then microwave fresh beets; puree the lot (skin and all).
Strain, squeeze out juice and set aside.
Take the PULP and add your milk to it (whatever amount the recipe calls for. Then strain that to use in your cake. You’ll have to measure again before you add it to the recipe.
I tried it with my family chocolate cake recipe (I use Cadbury Bourneville Cocoa) and it gave a nice bright red brown colour.
The saved juice is good as it is, or you can use it in smoothies, make iceblocks, etc
I fear I commented too soon. The cupcakes I made looked very red on top, and the small cake that I had microwaved earlier was red through. However, inside the oven-baked cupcakes,they were an orange brown colour. It was as if all the red had risen to the surface.
Back to the drawing-board.
Thanks for sticking with it, Rae! I just made a new recipe for cupcakes which should be up soon! Maybe you’ll be the one to help us figure out why this cake isn’t working outside the US!
You were on the right track playing with the pH, but not with the beets.
ORIGINALLY red velvet cake was named so because of the reaction between the cocoa powder (which was less alkaline than Dutch Process is, as you mention) and the more acidic ingredients, such as the buttermilk. The reaction turns the cocoa red, although not as bright red as you’re looking for. It would be more of a brownish red color. You may want to experiment with the pH levels using the buttermilk and unprocessed cocoa powder to see what kind of reaction you get.
Thanks, Joey.
[...] Take the artificial dye out of your red velvet cake by using red beets [...]
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I just wanted to say thank you so much for posting this.. I have a nephew who is really effected by red dye.. and of course this year for my son’s party we are doing thing one and thing two cupcakes and red velvet.. i’m so happy he will be able to have one too.. and won’t be left out … thanks again
Thanks, Amanda! Good luck with your party!
I’ve made your cake today! It turned RED!!:))
Thank you very much!
I’ll let you as soon as I post about it on my blog!!:)