Red Velvet Cake

Today's featured cake, the Red Velvet Cake, was bought at the historic Italian bakery in Providence, LaSalle's Bakery on Smith Street.  The cake is a classic. It is a Devil's Food cake only it has a bright red color and is usually topped with a creamy white icing. Of course the only way to get that bright red color is with lots of Red Dye number something.  Nonetheless the cake was very good and this was the first time we had it at cake hour.

The cake has an interesting history dating back to sometime in the 1940s. Supposedly Manhattan's elegant Waldorf-Astoria hotel granted a diner's request for the recipe which they followed up shortly thereafter with a bill in the amount of $100!  This angered the woman and apparently with revenge in mind she began circulating the recipe along with the story of what the hotel did.  This sounds very familiar to a story regarding a chocolate chip cookie recipe from.....Neiman Marcus!