[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by phatch

If you've got orange and chocolate on the brain, use some naranja agria. That should be sour enough.

And the bitter with the chocolate should be good too.

pHil

Yes. Good point. Love sour orange, and have some in the fridge now that you mention it. For anyone who doesn't, orange and lemon do about the same thing, and orange-lime closer still. I'm wondering about blood orange and lemon as a way of getting the sour-orange combination and pushing the "red-velvet" color. Downsides -- blood orange is expensive and trendy.

Orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit juices mixed with some sugar, some white rum and Pusser's Rum makes a "Navy Grog." The dark rum spoils the looks of the citrus juices, but there are worse things in life.

BDL

[Just Jim]

How about a chocolate cream pie, with some red dye, but then dye some graham crackers red for the crust.
As far as the twang, I'd try lightly sweetened sour cream for a topping.
I used to do that for fruit tarts with great success.

Red Velvet cakes I have had always had a sweet cake with the tangy white topping.

[izbnso]

BDL,
You will get no argument from me that cheese cake is the pinnacle of custards. And a tart/sour raspberry swirl cheese cake sounds scrumptious, but it doesn’t sound like anything I would put the “red velvet” label on.

I just can’t reconcile the idea of the cream cheese being incorporated into the body of the dessert and still calling it red velvet cake/pie/pudding, given that red velvet cake (admittedly, in its modern day manifestation) is all about the color contrast between the cake and the frosting and only marginally about the sweet of the frosting with the sour of the cake. The reason I never cared for red velvet is precisely because it’s about the look over the flavor. Yeah Sugar, it’s a Southern thang. “Our ability to accessorize is what separates us from the animals.”

Of course all of that could just be my skewed and slightly bent regional perception of red velvet, we are a stubborn lot.

The cheese cake idea got me thinking about spring form pans. I have a flourless chocolate “cake” recipe I use a lot (especially for the gluten free people) that is essentially just a chocolate custard baked in a spring form pan with no crust.
1 pound chocolate
1 pound butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
9 eggs
1 ½ TBS vanilla
Everything but the eggs and vanilla get melted on the stove top. Remove from heat and temper in eggs, add vanilla. Pour into a greased 10 inch spring form pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, until set.

The kind of chocolate I use varies. I have used everything from extra dark to white and even once used Reese’s peanut butter chips.

So what if we take your white chocolate idea and apply it here, but also incorporate some unsweetened chocolate, not a lot but just enough to provide a tad of flavor and a darker base color so that things don’t go all pink.
The 1 cup of cream could be replaced with buttermilk or not. Possibly a portion could be pureed raspberries or any of the other fruits you mentioned to add the sour flavor, even though the fruit addition is slightly out of character (but then again, we are sort of re-inventing the wheel here). And surely there is some way of incorporating some vinegar if necessary. Even with the natural color of a fruit addition it still might take some food coloring to get it to traditional red velvet color.
The sugar might need some adjustment as well. Maybe cut out completely or just way down to allow the sourness to come through. The sweetness of the white chocolate alone could be enough. I think the reason that she didn’t have success with the buttermilk pie version is because buttermilk pies typically call for a lot of sugar.

I still think it needs some sort of cream cheese topping and a powdered sugar frosting is all wrong for this in my opinion. And the baked custard is so dense I would prefer something with a lighter consistency. So I’m going back to the cream cheese butter cream. But Jim’s sour cream topping sounds intriguing.

Scaled down it might still work in a pie shell, giving her the pie she was questing for.

What do you think?

[boar_d_laze]

Iz,

That's very much along the lines I was thinking. If she could bear some granularity I think I'd make the custard with a mix of ricotta (lightens things up considerably) and cream cheese and white chocolate,and the other usual cheesecake suspects; then swirl in something intensely red and a bit chocolatesque to get the red/white contrast while holding the mild chocolate/sour balance. I think a fruit compliment in the swirl for color and to bring out the chocolate a bit would be nice.

The distinction between normal red velvet and plain white cake, besides color, is a little grain and taste from the cocoa. "A little" as in "not much." I realize that my take drifts farther from "real red velvet" than yours. But not being from the South, I have no obligation. At any rate, I like your idea and think you should bake two, and send one to me for evaluation. Of course we'll defer to (your) DH and (my) SWMBO for the final judgment. This is a lot of fun, but getting very complicated. It would be helpful to hear from fitcook before testing, perfecting and writing anything.

BDL

[fitcook]

Originally Posted by izbnso

BDL,
You will get no argument from me that cheese cake is the pinnacle of custards. And a tart/sour raspberry swirl cheese cake sounds scrumptious, but it doesn’t sound like anything I would put the “red velvet” label on.

I just can’t reconcile the idea of the cream cheese being incorporated into the body of the dessert and still calling it red velvet cake/pie/pudding, given that red velvet cake (admittedly, in its modern day manifestation) is all about the color contrast between the cake and the frosting and only marginally about the sweet of the frosting with the sour of the cake. The reason I never cared for red velvet is precisely because it’s about the look over the flavor. Yeah Sugar, it’s a Southern thang. “Our ability to accessorize is what separates us from the animals.”

Of course all of that could just be my skewed and slightly bent regional perception of red velvet, we are a stubborn lot.

The cheese cake idea got me thinking about spring form pans. I have a flourless chocolate “cake” recipe I use a lot (especially for the gluten free people) that is essentially just a chocolate custard baked in a spring form pan with no crust.
1 pound chocolate
1 pound butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
9 eggs
1 ½ TBS vanilla
Everything but the eggs and vanilla get melted on the stove top. Remove from heat and temper in eggs, add vanilla. Pour into a greased 10 inch spring form pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, until set.

The kind of chocolate I use varies. I have used everything from extra dark to white and even once used Reese’s peanut butter chips.

So what if we take your white chocolate idea and apply it here, but also incorporate some unsweetened chocolate, not a lot but just enough to provide a tad of flavor and a darker base color so that things don’t go all pink.
The 1 cup of cream could be replaced with buttermilk or not. Possibly a portion could be pureed raspberries or any of the other fruits you mentioned to add the sour flavor, even though the fruit addition is slightly out of character (but then again, we are sort of re-inventing the wheel here). And surely there is some way of incorporating some vinegar if necessary. Even with the natural color of a fruit addition it still might take some food coloring to get it to traditional red velvet color.
The sugar might need some adjustment as well. Maybe cut out completely or just way down to allow the sourness to come through. The sweetness of the white chocolate alone could be enough. I think the reason that she didn’t have success with the buttermilk pie version is because buttermilk pies typically call for a lot of sugar.

I still think it needs some sort of cream cheese topping and a powdered sugar frosting is all wrong for this in my opinion. And the baked custard is so dense I would prefer something with a lighter consistency. So I’m going back to the cream cheese butter cream. But Jim’s sour cream topping sounds intriguing.

Scaled down it might still work in a pie shell, giving her the pie she was questing for.

What do you think?

Okaay... That sounds like a fabulous idea to try a flourless chocolate cake- add buttermilk and even vinegar for the twangy sourness, and try a cream cheese frosting and or jims sour cream topping....
I dont need a pie crust at all, and honestly, think i"ll be better without.

I tried a buttermilk pie without adding anything, adn you are right. WAY too much sugar and I was let down with no strong sourness.
So I may try a flourless chocolate buttermilk pie reducing sugar and adding a sour cream/cream cheese topping( like a garnish for cheesecakes)
Or I'll try a red velvet cheesecake- basically a reduced sugar sour chocolate cheesecake.


I've been given such great ideas! Thank you all...
I'll keep you informed on what comes about...
To begin my cheesecake recipe, What is the best basic most SOUR cheesecake recipe anyone has come across?