im Kontext

roter Samt, roter Samtkuchen...

Native speakers?

aha

mmmmm *lickingmychops*

@ snickerdoodle: Could you tell us (Germany) more? Sorry, your comment is not quite clear to me.

Schau mal hier ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_velvet_cake

Ihr Leckermäuler habt vergessen, dass das jemand übersetzt haben will! :-)

Mein Übersetzungsvorschlag: Red Velvet Cake !!
Toll, nech?

edit: okay, eigentlich ging es Julia ja doch nur um den roten Samt!

Übersetzt? Nööö, sie wollte wissen, was das ist.

Es gibt übrigens noch Blue Velvet von David Lynch und mit Isabella Rossellini und Dennis Hopper. Sehr sehenswert!!!

And, I, according to Babel Fish, live in a velvet community (Samtgemeinde)! Now, isn't that interesting ? ?

Meine Oma hat ihr Rezept erst nach ein Paar Jahre "drängeln" seitens meiner Mutter, an ihr weitergereicht :-)) Aber ihre hat auch noch "pecan nuts" und Kokusnusraspeln im "icing". Gibt es jedes Jahr zur Thanksgiving.

Bäääh, pecans, coconut, pfui. That sounds more like a German chocolate cake (according to Betty Crocker). Mustn't distract from the main attraction: chocolate.

My great-aunt, may she rest in peace, used to make terrific ones. As a non-baker, I've never understood the exact difference between a devil's-food cake and a red velvet cake, if there is one.

#10 - Carly - the greatest home-made cake I had in the US was my host mom's pecan pie. At one point I wanted to make one like that - my host mother already long for a long time - , but it turned out all recipes for pecan pie on the net are just made with a terribly high amount of sugar.
Have you got one to share that involves less sugar and more dough? :-)

Roter Samtkuchen

Red velvet cake ist ähnlich zu verstehen wie die Donauwellen, sie beziehen sich auf das rote Aussehen des Kuchens. Er wird meist leicht angefrostet gegessen und hat daher nicht nur rotes Aussehen, sondern die verwendete Buttermilch erscheint einem samtig und hat den Namensgeber wohl dazu inspiriert.
Somit handelt es sich hier um einen Eigennamen eines amerikanischen Kuchens und ist nicht wirklich übersetzbar!

NOOOO hm - I love German Chocolate, but am not all that fond of Red Velvet (though the rest of our extended family is). The icing and cake consistency is entirely different - AND my mother says she only bakes it out of love for her family, because it takes 34 (I think) ingredients, one of which is vinegar - and is a b***** to bake. I once baked a German chocolate from scratch using a Betty Croker recipe (NOT cake mix), and it too, was not at all easy. Turned out fine, but never again :-))

maxxpf, I adore pecan pie - and my mother bakes one for Thanksgiving, too :-)) My grandfather had pecan trees on his property, and up until he passed away (95), he would not only harvest them, but sent them already shelled to us here in Germany - we'd "fight" over who got how many bags :-) Have never made a pecan pie myself, will have to ask my mother - or check out my cook book. Will get back to you later this evening.

P.S. Maybe that's why my grandmother added pecans...they grew at her doorstep, and had to be used :-))

@Carly: In 10 it should read "Meine Oma hat ihr Rezept an SIE weitergereicht.", Akkusativ.

alright, thanks a lot!!!
so that's what I've learned:
1. the best translation for red velvet cake is red velvet cake
2. German chocolate is delicious
3. I should definitely try pecan pie one day
4. red velvet cake tastes very velvety^^
5. this cake is very hard to do!
thanks ;)

GREAT!! ;)
Ich glaube, dass die rote Farbe im Kuchen von roter Beete kommt, oder?

moi, Just asked my mother - the red color is achieved using food coloring :-) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...

That's another thing I've never seen here in Germany. She said she mixed 1 teaspoon of chocolate poweder together with the vinegar - just relating that because of the odd-ball ingredient "vinegar" :-)

Carly-AE, I had looked up some of the history of Red Velvet and then also Devil's Food cakes to see if I could figure out the question hm--us posed about the difference. I don't know if it was urban legend or not, but some claims were before cocoa powder was highly processed the vinegar interacted with it and a reddish color resulted. Sometime after the cake was popular the refining/processing of cocoa powder changed and the reaction between it and the vinegar longer produced the reddish color. I am guessing the vinegar was part of the recipe because baking soda is one of the ingredients rather than baking powder, so I think it reacts with the soda to produce the leavening and add some rise to the cake. I think others say it makes the cake springy. Also, the amount of vinegar is pretty low something like a tablespoon or two if my memory serves me.

snickerdoodle, That could well be - my mother will soon turn 78. When I spoke with her today, she mentioned that last year she had tried another recipe for Red Velvet that didn't need nearly as many ingredients - however, she was disappointed with the results, and wrote them about mixing the cocoa powder with vinegar (which their recipe lack), stating she was sure that that made the difference - sent it off per e-mail, and she's soon to turn 78 :-)) To me personally, Red Velvet is not nearly as "springy" as is German Chocolate - and the icing tastes more like what Germans call "Buttercrem" - which might explain why all our German relatives, and anyone else who has tried it, love Red Velvet, once they get over the redness :-) I don't really care for devil's food, either - much prefer Angel Food cake :-))

You all are beyond me with the vinegar and the color, but it sounds interesting. I could never have imagined that anyone would choose angelfood over devil's food. (-;

Just one belated response on the pecan pie issue: I suspect that any recipe without massive amounts of sugar in the filling (that's the part with the pecans; the dough is what makes the crust) would no longer be pecan pie.

hm, Yep, the sugary-sweet, syrupy filling coating the pecans is what pecan pie is all about :-)) As to my prefering angel food over devil's food - no one in my family can understand that, either :-) Took a "google look" at the two types...my mother made angel food with all the yummy icings depicted on devil's food.

#21, #22 -
Thanks for the hint. So, if memory serves me right, my host mum must have had her own special recipe of pecan pie. I remember it having a sweet, aromatic dough inside the pie crust, probably similar to a German "Rührteig". So maybe I should turn to my host mum's kids or her friends for further information.

Hi maxxpf - You've lost me with "...sweet, aromatic dough inside the pie crust"...pie crust is a dough :-) Wait, just had a thought: Did she perhaps make "pecan tarts" ?? http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=...

Or, pecan coffee cake: http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&s...

#24 - Yes, some of the pictures look more like the one I dimly remember. It still had the traditional American pie crust as a base I believe, and I'm also rather sure that she at least called hers a "pecan pie", not a "coffee cake", though, that's at least the word that's still stuck in my mind. :-)

Well, she might also have had a "family recipe" handed down through the generations as was our "Red Velvet" :-) Will flick through my cook books, and see whether I can find anything else that might fit your memories - at least, you can now find pecans here in Germany, though they are as expensive as all heck!!

Do we need a separate thread called pecan pie so anyone else with nostalgic dessert memories can find it again?

I'm still not sure quite what maxxpf is remembering, but this whole topic is fraught with potential misunderstandings in translation: pie, cake, Kuchen, Torte, dough, crust, batter, filling, Teig ...

I trust that maxxpf remembers correctly that it was called pecan pie, but if that word was right, it almost surely had a stiff baked crust as a kind of shell on the bottom. The crust is made from dough, but we only use the word 'dough' for the mixture while it's still soft and uncooked, like bread before it's baked. After it's baked in the oven, it's called the crust, like the bottom of a pizza. (In BE apparently the word 'base' is sometimes used, though pies as such aren't as common.)

After the crust has cooled, you then add the filling, with the pecans mixed in, and bake again. And it's really called filling, not dough, because it doesn't contain any flour, only sugar, butter, eggs, corn syrup, and pecans. (A daunting list, but hey, nuts are good for cholesterol, right? (-; )

hm--us, you're obviously right about the suggestion to open up another thread for pecan pie, but as an answer to #27 I'd just like to add that what is called the filling in AE to me had more the consistence of what we call "Rührteig" in German, which means it may have contained flour, butter, eggs and sugar.
You might note that many German cakes only have one kind of dough and no filling, with the side of the dough just turning into a crust, while the rest has a fluffier consistence.

All of you are talking for days now about cakes and I havent seen a recipe yet. Would it be possible to share recipes for red velvet cake, pecan pie, chocolate cake or other yummy things??

Or is this too much off topic??

Mikemy, Somewhere there's a (or several?) LEO recipe threads :-) I've already promised to copy my grandmother's recipe, including the notes my mother added and will have it "ready-to-send" on October 20th.

@ Carly-AE:

Thanks a lot. I hope I will find the recipe threads. Actually this thread alone makes me looking forward to it :-) - Same for your (or your grandmother's) recipe!

Sorry .

#31 is me.

lecker

Hi All, I fell sick, and didn't make it home for Thanksgiving this year, first one I've missed since the day I was born...but I now have the recipe, and should anyone still wish to have it, please let me know - will scan and send :-))