Red Velvet // OutKast

I've long avoided writing this blog to avoid writing something libellous.
The main fault with libel laws is that at the end of the day the publisher is guilty until proven innocent. Or to put it another way; if i was going to call one of London's most successful bakers "morons who know nothing about cooking"
I would be forced by a court of law to prove that this was irrefutably the truth while, until I had done so, I would be expected to cough up the sum of damages to the "moronic" baker's reputation each time the words get published.

Ladies and gentlemen, In the delightful world of the Internet, every day is a new publication. As such the delightfully nick-named and over paid libel lawyers criticised weekly in Private-eye are able to open a new case and compensation claim every day. The one and great defence against the libel lawyers is the fact that you are telling the truth this makes a claim no longer libellous and simply a fact. I concede that probably a successful baking company does in fact know a bit about cooking and as establishers of a working and growing business are probably not moronic.

In conclusion, your honours, I would like to state that the humming-bird bakers are NOT morons who know nothing about cooking. In fact they are shrewd marketers who are bloody good at scamming their customers. So you get hyperbolic online reviews like these:

"incredible cup cakes Red Velvet is incredible if you fancy one BUY 2!!! Trust me on this…" said BigBruv from Cardiff


"This place never fail [sic] to deliver. It’s the best place to hang out with a mate or two on a saturday afternoon, having a slice of cake.
My favorite is the Red Velvet cake. They are delicious!"
comments beequin from London


"I have heard that the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor come to buy cake here and I wouldn't be surprised!
They sell the most amazing cakes and cupcakes. The best are the red velvet cupcakes. This also comes in a full sized cake.
It is a sponge which is red, iced with the most delicious cream cheese icing I have ever tasted."

That's right dw27 from London it is a cake that is red.

Hold on.. what do you say? a cake that is red! ... you mean... NO! you don't say? someone has put red food colouring in a cake.
HOLD THE PHONE GUYS. Call the Times and hold the front page on the Wall Street Journal and while Murdoch's on the blower we'll get this in the Australian Sun.

Someone SOMEWHERE Has had the tenacity to put food colouring into some food!


I first encountered this scam about a year ago. Libby had reason to make some cupcakes to impress and she had heard of these great "Red Velvet" cupcakes.
Everyone said they were the best, "there must be some baking trick" she said. Some kind of secret ingredient..
I countered that this was silly and in fact they can't be that good chocolate cupcakes would be nicer. "But" our lovely lib said, "but everyone on the Internet says they're the best".."they cant just be ordinary cakes"

I gave in, there must be some trick I thought. Because, sometimes reluctantly, I usually trust Libby when it comes to cake.
She scoured one recipe book then purchased a new cupcake recipe book.
It didn't have a red-velvet recipe. She then forked out a bit more for the Humming-Bird Bakery recipe book. This book told her the secret. The trick. The hidden ingredient. The baker's special flick of the wrist that makes red velvet the top cupcake of the day.
It told her to make a cake and to put in to the mix some red food colouring.

I don't know why it's so disappointing but I just feel cheated. We eventually wound up in Portabello and got a black bottomed cupcake and a red-velvet. It was so red! It was like a cupcake had been slaughtered and bled onto another cupcake then covered
with frosting. Aesthetics aside the cupcake was under filled and over topped but that's ok as the cake (once you've had a swig of whisky to help you overcome the shock of it's cakey redness) is pretty dull and wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny if presented on its own. Cupcakes dry out quickly so it was our fault for carrying the cake all the way home from Portobello before tucking in; It was dry, but there should have been some flavour.
The icing is nice but if I want a cheesecake I'll buy a cheesecake thankyouverymuch.


As you may have gathered I have a general contempt of excessive food colouring. It's not big and it's not clever. Colouring foods unnecessarily was in its last throes when Fanny Craddock dyed hard boiled eggs blue in the 70's in an attempt to reinvigorate her image. Are you surprised that it was a total flop?

If you're still taken in by the red-velvet phenomenon, come to my house and I'll cook you a purple roast chicken and I hope you choke.