Choclate cake, levels and definitions.

I consider chocolate cake to be an umbrella under which the categories of things like Devil's-food, red-velvet, and German-chocolate cake reside.

So, for a few years now, "Red velvet" cake has been a hip, in, and trendy thing. And I have to say, some people , who should know better, Should know better.

So Let me Ed-U-Cate

I have a few old cookbooks:
Between that, and my knowledgeable grandmothers, I give you the definitions of chocolate cake.

Red Velvet:
Red velvet is set apart ingredient wise with buttermilk and a little bit of Choco powder in the batter. Back in the day, before the recipe called for a TON of red food coloring, the color of the cake was NATURALLY occurring. It was before the chocolate was processed in a our modern "Dutch" processing ways. The chocolate would react with the buttermilk, and the reaction would cause the brown coco to look red. And the cream cheese frosting is a must. I would say this is the least chocolaty of the cakes.

Chocolate spoon cake:
This is the chocolate version of the classic pound cake. Also called Dump cake because you only use one bowl, and then dump it in the baking pan. This is the style most often found in cake mixes. Usually Eggs, milk and butter. It is chocolaty in a shallow way.

Devils food cake:
This cake in identified by the methods of using boiling water and coco powder. Sour cream and baking soda makes the cake a deeper brown and also a slightly different flavor. More "complex" flavor, because of the extra fat and acidity in the sour cream.  It has a more "coffee cake" texture from the cream and soda, which often leads to the appearance of coffee in the recipe. Back in the day, this cake was also red in color, and that is there it got the Devil name. But because of the other flavors, it's not that chocolaty.

German chocolate:
Using BROWN sugar, and the boiling water method with chunks of chocolate instead of coco. This makes the cake darker, and a richer flavor. The German part came form the origin of the chocolate; the original recipes called for a specific kind of sweet chocolate brick, that as imported from Germany, that the baker would then chop up and melt with hot water. The arrival of the coconut pecan frosting was closely after, but is still a good way to identify it.

"Brownies"
This cake is characterized by less flour, more coco and more liquid, as melting the butter is a must. Basically if a Brownie recipe calls for a leavening agent, then its actually a cake. Legend says that brownies were invented when someone left out the baking powder out of a chocolate cake by accident.