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, 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
Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 ½ cups caster sugar or fine white granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon extra for dusting
- 2 ½ tablespoons red food colouring liquid, not gel
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 2 ½ 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
- ½ 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 ½ - 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!
Judy says
How tall are your 8-inch cake pans? Thank you.
Brenda Griffiths says
I think they are about 1 1/2 inchesYes I’m using 8 inch tins
B says
What are the ingredients in metrics please? I’m from the UK and would like to make this for Valentine’s Day 🙂 thank you!
Molly&Oli says
I loved the cake, the best version of the red velvet from all the recipes I have tried. I had a problem with the cakes’s crust. I lightly dusted the pans butter and with 1 tablespoon of the sifted cocoa powder as the recipe instructed but….. the burnt cocoa powder tasted very burnt. 🙁 I had to slice off the crust from both cakes. I am not sure what I did wrong.
Jonsie says
Dust with reg flour and not cocoa powder.
Selena Tbc says
Loved it! I made it for the fam for christmas we loved it thank you
Pete says
I am diabetic. Is it possible to make this with a sugar substitute?
Connie says
Can you use another color and still use cocoa? I would like a purple velvet cake.
Thanks
Jeni says
Absolutely no reason at all you couldn’t change the colour. It won’t affect the taste or execution of the cake. make you some purple velvet cake girl!
Sandra says
Excited to try this recipe! However, I only have gelcoloring. Would that work?.
Djehan says
Recipe works fantastically well but now I’ve been asked to help bake the same but with diabetic sugar. I’ve never done this before and I was wondering if you have an opinion on it.
Christine says
The tops on mine ended up sort of crunchy/hard. Why would this have happened? Does my oven run too hot? I didn’t over cook them, insides turned out very nice.
coloredmeraki says
Loved your recipe. Wish there was a way to post a picture of my cake in this comment. It turned out delicious. I had made it for a friend’s son’s graduation party. Everyone loved it including the grad himself. thank you!