Red Velvet Cake - without the food colouring

[ScrambledSmegs]

Has anyone attempted this? I can't seem to find any recipes that rely solely on the chemical reaction between the raw cocoa powder, buttermilk and vinegar to turn the cake red (ok, red-ish). Everything that claims to be colouring-free seems to contain beetroots.

I really want to have a bash at this cake but obviously am a bit stuck without a decent recipe!

Anyone?

Final, desperate bump and then I'll leave you all in peace.

I make red velvet cupcakes without colouring. They don't turn out brilliantly red but I aim more for flavour rather than colour.

Thank you! I'm so sorry, I thought the thread had died, I didn't bother to check back till now.

So I guess I'll start experimenting with recipes now, without the colouring. Next week will be velvet cake week, with or without red

This thread might help a bit too - if you can find cocoa that hasn't gone through the dutch process (and certainly was a brand that hadn't) then it should work.

I have raw cocoa powder, I live in a slightly lentil-weavery area and we have natural food stores in abundance. It smells lovely, a very gentle chocolate flavour.

It was just the recipe I was a bit nervous about. However, I have a Rachel Allen book which seems to have a rather nice looking velvet cake recipe, which uses less food colouring than others (Dan Lepard, I'm looking at you) and will start on Monday with that.

Also, I'm not going to use the cream cheese icing either because I hate it, I'm going to use one that contains flour but it is actually very nice. Honest!

Classic red velvet icing

Like the sound of that icing - might have to try it out.

I generally use the Hummingbird RV recipe, but with 50-100g less sugar in the sponge and no colouring, which seems to work. I know it says cupcakes, but ignore that bit and just pour the mixture into a cake tin (I use a 9" square one").