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The most incredible Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting! Fluffy, soft, buttery and moist with the most perfect velvet texture!
Super easy to make Red Velvet Cake is similar to the original recipe that started it all! Made entirely from scratch with a few tips and tricks, this is one cake that takes centre stage! Softer than most cakes with a mouth-watering velvet-like texture in each bite.
Any cake that layered and slathered with a cream cheese frosting (carrot cake comes to mind) can sit by me with a huge spoon. Out of all cakes on this blog, this one is my favourite.
Red Velvet Cake
Is it chocolate? Is it vanilla? WHAT IS IT! Essentially it’s a Chocolate Cake made with little cocoa powder. The cocoa reacts with the acidic vinegar and buttermilk, and in turn keeps the cake moist, light, and fluffy. The chocolate taste is fairly mild but the flavours are delicately rich.
How To Make Red Velvet Cake
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. We tested a few versions with just butter, some with only oil, and some with half a dozen eggs! Truthfully, the one we are publishing is the best and received high praise from everyone who tried it. Both young and old!
With all the testing I have a few tips to get you the best results!
- Cake flour — We tried this version with both all purpose/plain flour and cake flour, and the cake flour version resulted in a softer, velvety cake, fooling everyone into thinking we had purchased it from an expensive baker! You can certainly use all purpose though if that’s all you have. You will still get an incredible cake.
- Oil — This addition guarantees a moist sponge. Mix it together with your cocoa powder and red dye so the three incorporate really well into the cake batter. This ensures the cocoa powder is mostly dissolved before being mixed through.
- Buttermilk OR milk with vinegar – We tried one version using buttermilk plus vinegar and one version making our own buttermilk, souring full cream milk with 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar before starting. Both worked INCREDIBLY well!
BAKING PANS
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.)
Just like my Best Fudgy Chocolate Cake and these Drunken Strawberries, this Red Velvet Cake is so super addictive it’s hard to stop at one piece! Not overly sweet, but perfectly rich at the same time. You’ll see what I mean when you try it!
Looking for more red velvet recipes
Red Velvet French Toast | The Best Red Velvet Churros | Red Velvet Marble Waffles
Red Velvet Cake on Video
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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,
I would like to try this in a 10 cup Bundt Pan.. Can you suggest baking time and temperature if I do this? Thank you!
I am not a professional cake baking i baked this red velvet cake followed the instructions as you say. It came out so good that when i tasted it i could not believe it was me that baked the cake, i baked with cake flour, like you said it taste like what a professional Baker baked. Please Karina I want to bake the red velvet cake in a heart shape 10 x 3.7 inches bake pan can you give me the measurements ingredients recipes. Am so glad i found your page thanks so much.
Loved the recipe but my cake came out green/grey!!! Still tastes amazing but followed the recipe and cannot figure it out…….has this happened to anyone else?
You used colouring which wasn’t suitable for baking (only icing) , happened to me first time too . Need to read the label.
Hi, I was wondering why red food coloring instead of gel coloring? I only have gel on hand and was wondering if I can substitute before I go buy food coloring? thanks
I did it with gel and it worked great!
This is literally the best cake i have ever made! Everything about this recipe was so useful – all the explanations and substitute information is something you don’t normally get and really does make a difference. Everyone who tasted loved it so much they even said it was the best red velvet cake they’d ever eaten, high praise indeed. I will definitely make it again and again
I just made this for Valentines day and it is AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for a great recipe!
Hi Karina ! I baked this cake for Valentines this year and it was just too good. Turned out to be the most amazing cake. I was always very sceptical about the Red velvet cakes because of the amount of colour that is used. However in this cake the quantity of colour used was quite less had still it had a beautiful red colour. Thanks for the lovely recipe.
I made this cake today and also this was my first time even making red velvet cake … the result was phenomenal … perfect !!! Everyone loved it !!! The cream cheese frosting was just as divine !!! Thanks so much for this recipe.
Karina,
I have made many cakes but never really found the perfect Red Velvet! All I can say is this cake is Amazeballs. It didn’t crumble and was so full of flavor and dense. It definitely won my guests over. I used regular flour and it worked just fine. I also made it onto cupcakes. For me becuase I love decorating I would modify the cream cheese frosting. The one you included was very good but I life stiffer frosting to do more flowers etc.
Thanks again and Happy Baking.
I’m so happy to hear that Bridget!
Well ,as for me, I’ve never thought of ever baking a cake until I encountered this phenominal cake .thanks for sharing your recipe.
Hi! How long did you bake the cupcakes for? Thanks!!
Kindly share your recipe for stiff cream cheese frosting as I always struggle with the frosting being too runny
Hi Karina
This recipe sounds perfect. I’ll try it soon. I want to ask that can I use the same recipe for the red velvet cupcakes? If yes then how many cupcakes will this recipe yield?
Thank you.