Are red velvet cupcakes just vanilla cupcakes with red food coloring?!

The previous poster is right about the texture of the cake... instead of it being a light and fluffy cake as you would expect, it's more dense like a pound cake.
Traditionally beet root is added to the cake batter in order to give it the red colour. But nowadays most people use dutch cocoa because of the reddish sheen it gives off once mixed with vinegar, which is another ingredient in red velvet cake/cupcakes. Most people will also add a few splashes of red food coloring, but this is not really necessary or healthy.
So a red velvet cake is actually a chocolate cake with red food colouring, not vanilla!

Baker and professional cook of 6.5 years

When we make red velvet cake the base is similar to vanilla cake, but we add cocoa powder, buttermilk and a tiny bit of white vinegar, as well as red food coloring. See the following link for one recipe (I'm sure there are many variations):

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,236,1591…

For comparison, here is a vanilla cake recipe:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,166,1501…

www.cooks.com

Red velvet cupcakes are made of red food coloring. Food coloring does not taste like vanilla. Probably the frosting use are mix with small amount of vanilla.

http://cupcakeideasforyou.com/

no red velvet cupcakes are not vanilla cupcakes :)
red velvet cupcakes are made of something way different than vanilla LOL!

No, they're sort of a combination of vanilla and cocoa. They're also supposed to have a smoother texture.

It's actually more like a devils food cake not vanilla. You must have gotten a very bad red velvet cupcake if you thought it was vanilla :-)

Not at all!! Red velvet cake is CHOCOLATE cake with tons of red food coloring! And it is ALWAYS topped with cream cheese frosting.

G


Red velvet is just mild chcolate cake with red food colorinG

no, they actually have some cocoa in it.

no red velvet has a deff recipe silly