Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free
This recipe couldn't be simpler and is a variation on one that we've made loads of times before. The original actually started out as a Weight Watchers cake, but once we saw that it suited our food allergy requirements, we immediately turned it into an Allergy Foodies cake, and we've rarely gone back to old-fashioned (but food allergy fangled) baking. This particular variation was a compilation of two or three recipes that we found online, so trust us when we say that no copyrights were harmed in the posting of this recipe.
The beautiful, deep red color fit perfectly for the Chinese New Year-themed party that we made them for, especially when they were topped off with Chinese characters wishing peace, fortune and a good year ahead.
Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix (we like Duncan Hines because the mix itself is dairy-free/egg-free/nut-free)
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa (we used Hershey's)
- 1 can Sprite Zero (because there are no calories in it - if we're going to have cake around we want to eat it too! If you have another clear soda on hand - calorie-laden or not - it will work just fine)
- 1 to 2 teaspooons of vanilla extract
- A whole mess of red food coloring
Steps
- Empty the cake mix into a medium mixing bowl, add the cocoa powder and combine.
- Pour the Sprite Zero into the dry ingredients. When the carbonation has settled down a bit, begin mixing with an electric mixer.
- When the ingredients are mostly mixed, add the vanilla (to taste) and red food coloring. We began with about half of a 1 ounce bottle of McCormick food coloring, but the more we mixed, the lighter the batter became, and we added more. Now there's just a drop left in the bottle.
- Pour the cake batter into your cooking vessel of choice and bake per the instructions on the box. When there's a range, we tend to bake to the lower end of the range. Maybe our oven is fast, or maybe the absence of added eggs and oil changes the cooking time. All we know is if you don't want burned up baked goodies, check 'em early.
Notes
- One of the recipes we used in coming up with the one above said to add a teaspoon of distilled white vinegar at the same time as the food coloring and vanilla. Since we're not trained pastry chefs, we didn't understand the value the vinegar was bringing to the table, so we omitted it. Maybe next time we'll give it a shot, just to see what it does, but from where we sit, you don't need it. If you try it, let us know how it turns out. Write to us at allergyfoodies(at)gmail(dot)com.
- Traditional Red Velvet Cake (not as traditionally southern as you might think, by the way) is made with loads of off-limits products. We could have experimented by converting a from-scratch recipe, using soymilk, Ener-G Egg Replacer or another egg replacement concoction, soy sour cream, etc. Clearly, we didn't go that route. Having neither the time nor the inclination to play mad scientist/pastry chef, we went for simple.
