Oh yes lots of vanilla. I’ve been having fun using Trader Joe’s vanilla bean paste. It’s really pretty on anything light, all those flecks. Looks great in cream cheese frosting.
I never heard of red velvet until recently, maybe it’s a southern thing.
It IS a southern thing now. And that is weird because it was invented in the 1920s at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City! And that is more yankee than I like to think about!