By Jennifer Bain
Katie Holmes’ cravings were so bad she had them flown in from New York – but Toronto has its fair share of red velvet wonders
Red velvet cake, which had a cult following at Eaton’s department store restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, is making a comeback in the form of cupcakes.
Katie Holmes recently had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting delivered from New York to the Toronto set of her History Channel miniseries The Kennedys.
The story made People.com complete with the recipe from Isabelle’s Curly Cakes.
Starbucks, the arbiter of mainstream taste, has been selling a red velvet cupcake (also with cream cheese icing) for two years and says it’s a customer favourite.
“It might seem odd, at first, that something you eat would be named after something you wear,” says Starbucks.com. “But after you taste this deliciously moist cupcake, we think you’ll agree that it’s as luxurious as spun silk.”
Speaking of moistness, Duncan Hines makes a “moist deluxe” red velvet cake mix. Katie Rousonelos of Madison, Wisconsin created Red Carpet Glamour cupcakes from the mix and just won a trip to the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Her cupcakes will be served at an Aug. 27 reception for the nominees.
In Toronto, you can quell a red velvet cupcake craving at multiple bakeries, including For the Love of Cake in Liberty Village, The Cupcakery on St. Clair Ave. W., and Sweet Tooth on the Danforth.
Still, for every red velvet fan there’s someone else who has never heard of the flavour or is baffled by the appeal.
This is really just a mildly chocolate cupcake with a dramatic red hue and gobs of icing. Cocoa powder and red food colouring (or sometimes beet juice) are key ingredients. Buttermilk and some type of vinegar are usually involved.
Red velvet cake was the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel’s signature dessert in New York City in the 1920s. In Canada, Eaton’s eventually stopped making it in its Round Room. Some say concerns over eating red food dye contributed to the cake’s fall from favour. Then in 1989, Steel Magnolias featured a red velvet cake and its popularity began to rebound.
“Red velvet is one of those thing that garners so much attention because of the name,” laments Torontonian Howard Chang who blogs about eating and making cupcakes with his girlfriend Sylvia Chan on A Baked Creation.
“Most people understand red velvet is just red dye. I personally don’t like putting too much red dye in it. The cocoa powder is used to mask the bitterness of the dye.”
Chang and Chan’s favourite cupcake shop, Life is Sweet in the Beaches, doesn’t sell red velvet cupcakes. The couple tasted a good version at SugarTiers in Markham, but haven’t tried enough red velvets to say with certainty who makes the best one.
Cupcake lovers were amused to hear that Holmes, who is playing first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the miniseries, felt she had to fly American cupcakes into Canada on July 20.
In this case, Holmes heard through someone at A&E about Boston-based Isabelle’s Curly Cakes being sold in New York at The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English.
Isabelle is English’s 17-year-old daughter. She doesn’t run the business, but helps create the flavours and recipes.
“A slight trick we do is the slight touch of red wine vinegar and the small amount of cocoa powder in the cake mixture, which gives them that velvety smooth texture,” Todd English told People. (There’s usually white vinegar in the batter.)
Lindsey Valdez, marketing coordinator for Todd English Enterprises, said this week: “She (Izzy) was very excited to hear that Katie Holmes had tried her cupcakes and she wanted to know if Tom and Suri were going to try them too.”
Along with 10 red velvet cupcakes, Holmes ordered 10 grasshopper (dark chocolate cupcakes with mint cream centres and dark chocolate frosting), two double chocolate, two coconut pineapple and two lemon meringue.
Genevieve Griffin, who co-owns For the Love of Cake in Toronto, finds it “kind of funny” that Holmes turned to New York for something so readily available here.
For the Love of Cake’s “four-dimensional” red velvet cupcake is filled with chocolate ganache and topped with cream cheese frosting and silver candy pearls.
“I know there are a lot of well-known bakeries in New York City, but I’ve had a lot of customers come in and say they’ve tried the ones at places like Magnolia Bakery, and they give us better reviews,” says Griffin.
