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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Red Velvet Revelations
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
photo: Ben Gray/AJC staff
It’s a bit of urban legend that attributes the origin of red velvet cake to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, where it was popular in the 1920s. Much like the Neiman-Marcus cookie myth, it’s unlikely that this ruby red cocoa cake, so lauded in the South, originated there.
Growing up Southern, it was my favorite birthday cake (though my mother often colored the cream cheese frosting purple, since that was my favorite color). I noticed my friends from Chicago, New York and New England had rarely ever heard of it, though. But about five to ten years ago, red velvet cake began to take hold all over the country. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lahey had one for their wedding cake (well, probably not such a good sign now that I think of it). And that’s a red velvet cake shaped like an armadillo for a groom’s cake in “Steel Magnolias.”
Suddenly, RVC was showing up everywhere — and it still is. My favorite in Atlanta? The simple version at Sweet Auburn Bread Company on Auburn Ave. or a slice from A Piece of Cake in Roswell or Buckhead. I’m working on an upcoming RVC piece for the AJC’s food section and I want to know: Where do you think the best red velvet cake in Atlanta is?
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