Last year I was reading a lot about New York Red Velvet cupcakes and made a few investigative batches. The bright red colour looks fabulous as a contrast to the smooth white cream cheese frosting so when my sister brought sent me a message asking if I had wanted to make some cakes for her to try out her fancy new camera on, Red Velvet sprung to mind. I immediately decided on doing a gateaux rather than cupcakes, for the aesthetics, however, now that I’d gotten over my initial inquisitiveness, I just couldn ‘t bear to add that much food colouring to a sponge cake. It’s funny, but it seems totally harmless and fun in cupcakes, but so wrong in a gateaux. I’d read a few comments on other websites about people using (or wanting to use) beetroot to colour red velvet cakes, although I’d never actually read a recipe which accomplished it. This in mind I set about creating my own naturally red velvet cake. Nothing but beetroot was used to colour it, and I substituted the often sickly cream cheese frosting for my white chocolate buttercream and this is the result.

Not as red as its American cousin, but so moist and very tasty. Nobody had a bad word to say about this cake so, while I admit it is not as vibrant as the coloured cupcakes, I count it as a success.
Picture courtesy of Holli.