A Lil Nibble

Have you ever tried to make chocolate cake and ended up with something like red velvet…

Of the 3 chocolate cake recipes I’ve tried recently, 2 of them gave me a red crumb and alkaline taste.  Now I know that this is essentially because of a reaction between the chocolate and baking soda, but when recipes are written and tested, the measurements should prevent such horrible reactions.  Maybe the recipes are written correctly, and I just don’t measure correctly?  Really?

Chocolate cake chronology:

-First I made R.L.B.’s mayonnaise cake from the Cake Bible.  I halved the recipe and used Ghiradelli cocoa.  If any sort of alkalinity from the baking soda were to ever remain, it should’ve been neutralized by the mayo’s acidity. In an ideal world that is…

-Next were White Chocolate Mocha cupcakes.  These were pretty good, though I’d increase the mocha-ness and white chocolate-ness next time.  Though there was lots of room for measurement error, as I thirded the recipe, the crumb was beautifully mocha-black with no bitterness in site.  Perhaps because the recipe calls for chocolate instead of cocoa powder?

-Third was the cupcakes in the previous post.  Now I’ve had those in cake form twice and there was no red-ness or bitter-ness either time.  As a matter of fact, when I crave chocolate cake, it’s usually this one.  Well, not so much after this last time.

There could also be an issue of dutch processed vs alkalized or whatever technical term in cocoa powders…but for the 3rd recipe, I used the Hershey’s brand that was suggested.

Any ideas on what’s wrong or what I could do in the future?