The 1800s Recipe That’s the Original Red Velvet

I am a red velvet cake connoisseur. While most kids gravitated towards chocolate or and ice cream cake for their birthdays, I always begged my mom for a decadent red velvet cake. There’s just something about this cake that always draws me in—its rich flavor, the fluffy and creamy texture,  the vibrant color. Everything about it just makes my mouth water thinking about it. I was surprised to find out that my favorite cake originated way back in the 1800s.

What Is Mahogany Cake?

When you start to look back in time, you’ll slowly start to realize that most of the baked goods we love in the 20th century have long, long histories—like the mahogany cake. This cake is technically the first “chocolate cake” on record and, according to Anne Byrn’s book American Cake, it can be traced all the way back to the 1800s. It even appeared in popular cookbooks like Sarah Tyson Rorer’s The Philadelphia Cookbook, which was published in 1886. But it’s the way that it’s made that paved the way for the modern red velvet cake.

“Velvet cakes” date back to the Victorian era. Unlike the heavier and more dense cakes that early settlers were used to, this method combined vinegar or buttermilk and baking soda, resulting in a softer and finer cake. Toward the end of the 19th century, bakers started adding small amounts of cocoa.

So how did the cake turn red? These days, chocolate is made with a process called “dutching” (a.k.a. alkalizing), which neutralizes acidic cocoa beans. But, back in the 1800s, the chemical reactions resulted in a bright red pigment.

The earlier renditions of the mahogany cake called for white ermine frosting, or “flour frosting.” By the 1960s, cream cheese frosting was the norm. As mahogany cake began to rise in popularity, bakers began to play with food coloring and beet juice to make the hue more vibrant.

How to Make Mahogany Cake

While I may be a red velvet cake girly at heart, I’ve seen its predecessor described as an even richer cake with a better chocolate flavor. If you want a taste of our culinary history, we have an authentic recipe.

Get the recipe: Mahogany Cake