Classic Red Velvet Cake gets reinvented

When boredom sets in, creativity takes over. And when they decide to play, the fun pays off in tasty ways.

Just look at what's being done with Red Velvet Cake.

The blood-red cake with lush cream-cheese icing and soothing cocoa aftertaste has for decades been a symbol of southern decadence. (Never mind that it originated at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.) In 1989, the flavor got a boost from the armadillo-shaped groom's cake featured in a wedding sequence of the film "Steel Magnolias."

Red Velvet Cake picked up in popularity again when economically distressed eaters started hunting for comfort food to soothe themselves during the downturn.

That wasn't enough for chefs, including the ones at Datz Delicatessen in Tampa.

When the deli opened on South MacDilll Avenue in 2009, it featured a giant Red Velvet Cake in its dessert case. Customers went nuts for it. That success begat Red Velvet cupcakes, which pastry chef Samantha Blakey now fills with chocolate fudge.

Four months ago, Datz began selling a triple-stack of Red Velvet buttermilk pancakes with a cream cheese icing drizzle and nuts sprinkled on top. They were so popular, the pancakes got called up to the show, moving from special to the permanent breakfast menu.

And because this is Datz, where more is better, there's now Red Velvet funnel cake with a sugar dusting as an appetizer. Florida State Fair vendors were serving Frisbee-size scarlet funnel cakes in February with a heavy blanket of sugar.

"Red Velvet is part of the whole notion of going back to roots," says manager and chef Heather Anne Stalker.

"Like the '40s and '50s nostalgia, and the fascination with aprons, people are craving the comfort of their youth and the notion of family," Stalker says. "Red Velvet reminds them of that idea."

Datz has plenty of playmates in the Red Velvet sandbox.

? In 2010, American Cupcake in San Francisco began serving Red Velvet fried chicken and waffles. The chicken is soaked in red velvet cake batter, dredged in toasted Red Velvet crumbles and then cooked in a frying pan. For extra guilt calories, the chicken was served with a scoop of cream cheese-flavored garlic mashed potatoes.

?During Valentine's this year, Morton's The Steakhouse in Orlando featured a Red Velvet cocktail that used raspberry beer, prosecco, Chambord and lemon peel.

?Yoder's Restaurant in Sarasota, known more for its sumptuous pies and comfort food, began making Red Velvet whoopie pies last year for customers to purchase at the take-out register.

?At the Yogurtology chain, get a big bowl of soft-serve Red Velvet frozen yogurt with white yogurt chips on top. During a recent afternoon at the Henderson Boulevard store in Tampa, the flavor was popular with several moms who brought their kids for an after-school treat.

?In February, food blogger Ryan Hatt featured a Red Velvet doughnut on his Ryan's Baking Blog. (http://ryansbakingblog.com).

Hatt, a 20-year-old self-taught baker and student in Philadelphia at the University of the Arts, wanted to build on a Red Velvet cupcake recipe he had without straying too far into chocolate territory.

"You get a small hint of cocoa and buttermilk flavor," Hatt says. "I love buttermilk in pancakes and biscuits, The combination of the two in a doughnut interested me."

The audience on his blog loved the recipe, he says.

"I think the red color was part of the appeal," Hatt says. "Everyone loves doughnuts."

?Amateur baker Julie Deily started a mini-Internet craze a few weeks ago when she posted a recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Pops on her blog The Little Kitchen. (TheLittleKitchen.net)

At the request of blogging friend and Tampa Tribune columnist Jaden Hair, Deily made the cake-based lollipops that were dipped in a cheesecake icing. She drew inspiration from another blog, Bakerella.

"I saw the Red Velvet cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory and thought, 'Why not make a pop out of that?' " Deily says.

The reaction was immediate when she brought them to work. "They disappeared," she says. "They were gone."

The recipe has since been reposted across the Internet and mentioned in the New York Times' Diner's Journal blog.

"I definitely think it's a comfort food thing," Deily says. "And when you have a Red Velvet cake, the cream cheese makes it a pure indulgence."