[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP: Wazzup with "Red Velvet Cake"

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>
wrote:
> 
> For a long time the recipe for this cake was
> distributed only through 
> chain letters - on and off the internet.  My
> wife baked it once or 
> twice many years back, and one of those times
> she frosted it with 
> bright green frosting.  It thereafter was
> called "ogre cake" in our 
> family because the first comment made when
> cutting the bright green 
> cake was "Oh God, It's Red!"
> 
> You can find details of the chain letter at
> snopes.com - search under 
> "red velvet cake".
> 
> - Doc

Hmmmm.   Way back in 1963, my elderly cousin, 
Emma Capon, who was a society-type person, whose
husband was very well-to-do and the CEO of
Burbank's Dept. of Water and Power, served this
cake, which she called "Red Devil's Food Cake",
which she said had been given to her by a friend
of hers who had been _given_ the recipe by the
chef from the Waldorf-Astoria.  She said nothing
about having to purchase the recipe, but in the
kind of circles that my cousin associated with,
money was never considered an object.  But then
again, am I wrong in thinking that it would not 
be unusual for a chef to _give_ a recipe to an
important, frequent customer?

Unfortunately, my cousin Emma died a few years
ago at the age of 92.  I would have loved to have
asked her who she got the recipe from and what
the circumstances were that she got it from
her friend.  Perhaps, if I had known that this
cake was part of an urban legend, I could have
found the source of the legend.  I had heard
about the Niemann-Marcus cookie urban legend.
I just never heard about the previous
machinations.

Any way, the cake I had was quite delicious.
My cousin's cook was an excellent baker.  I
don't recall any coloration problems with my
"residue".  Since I was only 11 at the time,
I didn't ask for a copy of the recipe.  But I
will go through my mother's recipes to see if
she may have a copy.

Huette


=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.


	
		
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