What flavor is red velvet cake?

Red Velvet cake is traditionally a red or red-brown layer cake topped with white cream cheese or cooked roux icing. It is commonly served on Christmas or Valentine's Day. Red velvet cake is often made by dyeing chocolate cake red.

Common ingredients include buttermilk, butter, cocoa, and flour for the cake, beetroot or red food coloring for the color.

James Beard's reference, American Cookery (1972), describes three red velvet cakes varying in the amounts of shortening, butter, and vegetable oil. All used red food coloring, but the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in cocoa and keeps the cake moist, light, and fluffy. This natural tinting may have been the source for the name "red velvet", as well as "Devil's food" and similar names for chocolate cakes. Contemporarily, chocolate has often undergone Dutch processing, which prevents the color change of the anthocyanins.