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Get ready to devour the Best Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting! After testing this recipe countless times for family birthdays, I’ve perfected a fluffy, buttery, and incredibly moist cake with a texture that truly lives up to the name “velvet.”
Made entirely from scratch, this recipe is packed with tips I’ve learned over the years to guarantee it takes centre stage. The secret isn’t just one thing—it’s the combination of butter and oil for moisture, plus the chemical magic between buttermilk and vinegar that creates its signature tender crumb as the carbon dioxide gas gets trapped in the cake batter causing the cake to rise. It’s no wonder this is the most requested of all the cake recipes on Cafe Delites. Of all Cake Recipes on my blog, this one has to be my favourite. If you love rich celebration cakes, you might also enjoy this buttery chocolate cake layered with creamy coffee frosting for something equally impressive.
Why This Recipe Is Better
This red velvet cake has been adapted from The New York Times, with slight adjustments to the ingredients and the addition of oil for an even softer, richer and buttery melt-in-your-mouth cake. I tested a few versions with just butter, some with only oil, and some with half a dozen eggs!
Just like my Best Fudgy Chocolate Cake and these Drunken Strawberries, this Red Velvet Cake is so addictive, it’s hard to stop at one piece! It’s not overly sweet, but still perfectly rich at the same time. You’ll see what I mean when you try it!
The batter is then split into two separate 8-inch baking pans to create two layers. We tried it with 9-inch pans and while the texture was good, the layers were a little too thin for our liking. Trim the dome on top away so the top layer sits better on the bottom layer. When trimming, you will feel how moist this cake really is! Try to save these pieces to decorate the cake with later! (Good luck not sneaking some pieces to eat! If you start, you won’t be able to stop.)
What Goes In Red Velvet Cake
- Butter + oil: This combo guarantees a moist sponge.
- Cake flour: For the softest, velvety delicious cake- I was actually fooling everyone into thinking we had purchased it from an expensive baker!
- Buttermilk + vinegar: For the perfect rich and moist texture. I tried one version using buttermilk plus vinegar and one version making my own buttermilk- both worked INCREDIBLY well!
- Cream cheese: Full fat cream cheese works best here. Make sure it is at room temperature before you use it to make the frosting.
- Lemon juice: This one’s optional, but lends a beautiful tangy, citrusy flavor.
Note: please see recipe card at the bottom for list of full ingredients and measurements
How To Make Red Velvet Cake
- Prepare pans & preheat oven. grease two 8-inch (≈20 cm) baking pans. Dust lightly with cocoa powder. Preheat oven to 175 °C (350 °F).
- Cream butter and sugar. Beat the room-temperature butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs. add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Mix colour + cocoa + oil. In a small bowl, mix oil, cocoa powder, red food colouring, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in vinegar.
- Combine dry and wet. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add half the dry mix and half the buttermilk to the butter mixture, mix. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and remaining buttermilk. Mix just until combined.
- Bake. Divide the batter between the two prepared pans. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cakes cool in pans 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
- Make frosting. Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Add icing sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy.
- Assemble & decorate. Trim domed tops to level. Place one layer, spread frosting, top with second layer. Frost the top and sides. Use any trimmed cake bits to crumble over the top.
Serve this best red velvet cake as a dessert for a party or a get-together you’re hosting. I love making it whenever I’m hosting a house party- usually teamed up with snacks and appetizers like Sausage Rolls, Chili Garlic Butter Shrimp and some Homemade Truffle Fries.
Red Velvet Cake FAQ’s
Yes, you absolutely can. Your cake will still turn out incredibly delicious. I love using cake flour though- the soft texture is just unmatched.
If you don’t have buttermilk, you can easily make it from scratch, on your own. All you need to do is combine 1 cup of full cream milk with 1 teaspoon vinegar and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. That’s it!
Red velvet cakes usually do have some holes. This happens because of the reaction between the buttermilk and baking soda. It’s completely okay, and once you frost the cake, the holes won’t be visible at all.
Red Velvet Cake on Video
Looking for more red velvet recipes
Red Velvet French Toast | The Best Red Velvet Churros | Red Velvet Marble Waffles
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Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups caster sugar or fine white granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon extra for dusting
- 2 1/2 tablespoons red food colouring liquid, not gel
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 2 1/2 cups plain cake flour sifted, or all purpose/plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda bi-carb soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 14 ounces cream cheese not spreadable, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 4 cups icing sugar or confectioners
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice optional – adds subtle hint of lemon
Instructions
For Cake:
- Heat oven to 350°F | 175°C. Lightly grease two 8-inch cake pans with butter or nonstick oil spray and lightly dust with 1 tablespoon of the sifted cocoa powder.
- Cream butter and sugar together until light in colour. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition to combine well.
- In a smaller bowl, mix together oil, remaining cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla until smooth. Stir colour mixture and vinegar through the creamed sugar mixture to combine.
- Sift together flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add half of the dry ingredients and half of the buttermilk to the wet ingredients; mix well. Repeat with remaining dry ingredients and buttermilk.
- Divide batter among the 2 prepared pans and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack completely.
For Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth lighter in colour (about 3-4 minutes). Beat in icing sugar until frosting is light and fluffy (if frosting is too thin, add more icing sugar and beat again until reaching your desired consistency).Optional if using: mix in the lemon juice.
Assemble Cake:
- Transfer 1 cake onto a serving dish/plate, flat-side down. Trim the top dome off of the cake to create a flat bottom later. Scoop about 1 1/2 – 2 cups of frosting onto cake and spread evenly over the top.
- Place second cake layer on top and use remaining frosting to cover top and sides of cake.
- Crumble trimmed pieces of cake to decorate.Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi Karina! Thank you very much for this wonderful recipe. I have baked red velvet cake quite a few times now and everytime, everyone have enjoyed it and complimented me, all credit to you and your recipe.
It would really help if you could guide me on how to make eggless version of this cake.
Thank you ?
Hi Karina, thanks for the recipe.
I’ll make one for the 1st time.
What did you use, cake flour or all purpose flour?
I use cake flour but either flour works great! Enjoy your Red Velvet Cake! XO
Hello!
I am making this cake for my best friend next week! But I have a few question – (I am not a great baker!!)
1) I’m based in the UK so we don’t have cream cheese bricks – only cream cheese in tubs. Is there anything I can add to the mixture to improve results? Will it still be ok with non-brick cream cheese?
2) I can’t seem to find white vinegar… What other substitute of vinegar can I use?
3) As I only have one baking tin, I just want to make one cake (without cutting it in the middle), so I just want frosting around the cake. Can I use your measurements and make one giant cake? Or should I have it?
Thank you very much!!! 🙂
1. Yes, that is just fine!
2. white distilled vinegar. It is usually in the baking isle or my the seasonings.
3. Yes, you can make one cake. That will be great!
Enjoy! XO
Hi,
Planning to make this cake tomo as a ‘book’ cake for my daughter’s birthday.
What tweaks would you recommend please, if I need to male this in a rectangular roasting pan about an A4 size?
Thanks from Christchurch, New Zealand!
Oh fun! That will be great! I hope to see pictures or know how it turned out. I would recommend adding time on the cake. You will have to keep a watch on it.
I made this cake yesterday for my son’s birthday. It was quite good. The icing was superb. All the guests 18+ finished their cake and seemed to enjoy it. No pieces left on plates which in my book means they liked it. The layers were very even and the cake looked beautiful. The layers did not rise a lot and were generally flat. But this worked well as the layers were quite even. I made 9″ layers because I wanted a bigger cake. With the large amount of icing between the layers the cake was a nice height. I wish I could upload a pic. I decorated it with chocolate sugar sprinkles all around and extra crumbs around the edges as you suggested. I placed a mound of raspberries in the middle of the cake and a raspberry every 6 inches or so around the bottom of the cake. The presentation was lovely. Thanks so much for this recipe. I love to try new recipes and this one was right on! I hope others will bake as well.
Hi Karina
Just made the cake, looks great but I made the icing with Philadelphia full fat thinking this would be firm enough, it wasn’t! ? I’m in England and don’t know what brand of soft cheese to use, I couldn’t see what I thought I needed in the supermarket, any suggestions? Many thanks, Elaine
HMM! I am not sure why that did not set up. I usually purchase the cream cheese that is in a rectangle form and use that when mixing for my frosting. I am sorry it didn’t set up well for you. This is a delicious cake. Adding more milk to the mixture could have helped too. Thanks for choosing one of my recipes! XO
Hi there
You will need to get rid of the extra fluids in the cheese. UK cheese is very soft compared to US Philadelphia.
Put Philadelphia cheese in a mesh cloth and let it drain
Old post I know but others might read the comments for similar help.
UK cream cheese is only in tubs and whipped not as dense as the blocks (no longer sold in the uk) you need to drain off the fluid like bayan said and add more icing sugar to stiffen any kind of cream cheese frosting.
It can make it sweeter so personally I use salted butter to help even that out and dont forget to put it in the fridge to firm up and check consistency before adding more.
Hopefully that helps all the UK people!
thank you, exactly what I needed to know as I am in the UK and never made a red velvet cake before.
If I bake this using homemade buttermilk do I still add the extra vinegar to the cake mix? Thanks!
No, that should work great! Thanks for following along with me! XO
Yes, that is correct! Thanks for choosing one of my recipes! Good luck!XO
Hi! I am going to make this cake today, but a quick question. Can the cooking oil be substituted for extra light virgin olive oil or canola oil? Thanks!
Yes, it will alter the taste of the cake though.
The cake looks great, can you freeze the cream cheese frosting? I’m wanting to mirror glaze it but would need to freeze it first.
Yes, you can freeze it. That sounds great! Enjoy! XO
Hi,
I am planning to make this cake in a 6inch pan as I need a 6 inch cake. )I know there will be extra batter which I will just bake in another pan.) Just wondering how high to fill the batter in my 6inch pan? Is it halfway or 2/3 full? Thanks!
I would recommend about 2/3 of the cake pan full. Hope that helps! XO