Question for all you home bakers!

[MillieMoocher]

Looking for some help/pointers please ....

Decided to make a strawberry flavoured Victoria sponge this afternoon, using a basic Victoria sponge recipe (that I’ve used for years) and adding some red food colouring to make the sponge red.

Ok, I can already hear the experienced bakers laughing at my schoolboy error, so my question is how do you colour a Victoria sponge red?

(For those who can’t quite see what happened, it’s just that the basic sponge batter is quite yellow, naturally, from the eggs etc. So when you add red colour, it kind of goes a horrid grey colour. So you add more and of course yellow and red make blue. So I’ve got quite a blue coloured sponge as I added more and more red to move on from the grey colour..)

Won’t of course make any difference to this one, but I’ll know for next time...

 

[Puddleduck]

We need photos

I have a recipe for a sponge using beetroot which I can find for you - but it is a deep deep red colour when made. Not at all strawberry red, more like ox-blood red.

 

[MillieMoocher]

Picture now attached...tastes absolutely fine - just a bit of a funny colour...

 

[The Dudess]

Perfect for halloween.

 

[Puddleduck]

Perfect for halloween.

Just add some eyeball chocolates as decoration to the top.

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[Puddleduck]

Now that is a red cake!!!! Not my recipe and the recipe for this one uses red paste colouring which is probably full of additives.

 

[Janine]

I'm surprised by the colour it turned out - red and yellow usually make an orange colour!

In the BBC's recipe for red velvet cake, they use red food colouring.
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/red_velvet_cake_70743

 

[MillieMoocher]

I'm surprised by the colour it turned out - red and yellow usually make an orange colour!

In the BBC's recipe for red velvet cake, they use red food colouring.
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/red_velvet_cake_70743

That’s a good point...just confuses me more that it came out blue!

This is the stuff I used, maybe I should have invested in some better quality colouring...

It might even be worth taking up with Sainsbury’s themselves.

 

[Grianan]

Bizarre ... yellow and red make orange, blue and yellow make green.

I’d definitely send a photo to Sainsbury or post it on their Facebook page with a suggestion for Halloween .. hopefully win yourself a voucher!

 

[sueandjohn]

Red velvet cake uses red food colour so I am mystified too

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[Minxy]

Reminds me of the time my sister cooked tea, fish and chips, and decided to try to make the batter a bit more appealing than the incipid pale colour it normally was so put in some red food colouring ... never had bright pink fish before ... although it did task okay!

Oh, and I like red cabbage in my coleslaw as I think it has more flavour than green cabbage ... hubby, for some reason, doesn't like it when it's pink but will eat it when it's the normal colour!

 

[Cat53]

You need cochineal.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Can Veggies use cochineal ?

 

[bellabee]

I've never tried to bake a pink or red cake. It's never crossed my mind, but I'm intrigued, now. I'm going to try it this weekend and see what happens.
Knowing my family, they'll eat it come what may.

 

[mitzimad]

my daughter bakes cakes as a sideline(face book. the cake barne) and she often has problems with red cakes
she recently did a reveal cake for a baby shower and when they told her it was a boy she was very relived

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[Cat53]

Can Veggies use cochineal ?

Oh, no....it’s crushed beetles! ...sorry.

 

[MillieMoocher]

So to conclude the problem I encountered, I’ve now heard back from Sainsbury’s who as you can see from their reply have managed to clarify the situation for me..

“Dear Martin,

Thanks for getting in touch about the red food colouring you bought from us.

It sounds like your red food colouring didn't look the way it should, I’m sorry you weren't able to enjoy it because of this.

Regarding an explanation there could be numerous reason behind this and wouldn't be able to give you a 100% accurate reason, as it could be the product itself or could be with the other ingredients.

We hope to see you in store again.

Kind regards,”



Obviously written by someone with a degree in the bleedin’ obvious...

I suppose on the plus side, with modern technology I didn’t waste a stamp...

How did your experiment go @bellabee ?

 

[Minxy]

Looks like the issue of Sainsburys food colour has been going on for years:



https://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/698499/red-velvet-cake-disaster

You said you made a strawberry flavoured cake ... does that mean you actually put some strawberry essence/flavouring in the cake batter mix? If so this could have affected the acidity levels and thus the food colours as that is what sometimes appears to happen with the red velvet cakes mentioned.

 

[bellabee]

How did your experiment go @bellabee

Didn't try it. I decided to make Parkin instead, in the run up to bonfire night.
There was half a loaf of it in the tin last night, when I went to bed, but the tin is mysteriously empty this morning .
I'll go to Sainsburys later, get some coulouring, and try out the experiment .

 

[MillieMoocher]

Thanks @Minxy Girl - you should get a job with Sainsbury’s customer services as you’ve given me a better steer than they did!

Yes, added some strawberry essence to the mix which might have had an affect.

I actually ended up throwing the cake away in the end, maybe a coincidence but we both had a banging headache the next morning so suspected that the amount of artificial colouring I’d put in (no doubt the colouring being full of cr@p) had not done us any good...

I do take some comfort though from not being alone with the problem..

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[Minxy]

I must admit that I never use food colouring at all, you just don't know what cr@p they put in it!

 

[bellabee]

So, here we have it. Definitely more green than pink! Made with 8oz flour etc. and about half a teaspoon of Sainsbury’s red food colouring. I can guarantee it won’t go in the bin, although I don’t intend to eat any myself.

 

[Puddleduck]

And the answer is - don't use Sainsbury food colouring!

I wonder if they use a red cabbage extract? I remember using red cabbage at school to test for acid / alkali in Chemistry.

 

[Puddleduck]

A bit more digging and I found this:

https://www.thoughtco.com/making-red-cabbage-ph-indicator-603650

 

[MillieMoocher]

Thanks @bellabee , I feel a lot better now about my problem..

I ended up tipping LOADS of the colouring in as I could see while it was in the mixer that it wasn’t looking red - and eventually gave up. Probably nearer to 2 tablespoons than half a teaspoon, so the adverse affect it had on us was probably down to the sheer quantity of the stuff we used...

@Puddleduck - thanks for the info, I suspect that Sainsbury’s are using a very cheap chemical cocktail as opposed to any natural products!

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[bellabee]

@milliethehymer I'm just going to tell them it's a pistache cake .

 

[MillieMoocher]

Redeemed myself tonight, made some rye bread ...all seems well so confidence has returned

 

[Puddleduck]

@Puddleduck - thanks for the info, I suspect that Sainsbury’s are using a very cheap chemical cocktail as opposed to any natural products!

I suspected you were correct:

Ingredients
INGREDIENTS:Water, Colours:Anthocyanins, Paprika Extract:, Emulsifierolysorbate 80:, Acidity Regulator:Citric Acid:, Antioxidant:Alpha-tocopherol, Ascorbyl Palmitate:, Palm Oil, Preservativeotassium Sorbate:.

but then discovered that anthocyanins are compounds found in foods such as red cabbage and purple cauliflower as well as other coloured plants. I recon they use it because it is cheap

 

[MillieMoocher]

Good info @Puddleduck - I couldn’t check my label as it was outside in the dustbin since Friday and well buried by now!

 

[Lenny HB]

Picture now attached...tastes absolutely fine - just a bit of a funny colour...

View attachment 263519

I think we need a Yuck button.

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