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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.
It came out delicious, albeit a bit crumbly, but maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. It does look that way in the photos. I did use all-purpose flour instead of cake flour (which I have, but had a bad experience when I used it for a homemade funfetti cake awhile back so I’m afraid to use again). Maybe that’s part of the cause of the texture. It is moist though, and I’m glad I got real buttermilk. I thought the frosting was SOOOO good (didn’t add lemon). I couldn’t stop eating it out of the bowl, thankfully, there’s more than enough for the cake. 🙂
My only problem I had, even though I try to read instructions carefully, was when I got to step 4, I accidentally read too quickly without reading through as “Add half of the dry ingredients to half of the buttermilk and the other half to the rest of the buttermilk”
and not “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. ”
So…. I was like.. what? I added half of the buttermilk to half of the flour mixture, and it got REALLY doughy. I could barely stir it. I was so confused. Then I re-read the directions and was kicking myself. I added the other half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, and then added that stupid doughy flour-buttermilk mixture to the wet ingredients and tried to mix it in as best as I could.
So my cake ended up having these chewy bits scattered throughout, not too much. Enough that I noticed. You live, you learn. Hopefully others don’t make the same mistakes I do. READ THE RECIPES!!! Don’t substitute ingredients! Lol. It’s a good cake though. Thanks for the recipe!
Oh, and I forgot to add. Yes I was confused about dusting the pans with cocoa powder if you’re just supposed to trim the cakes anyway. One of my cakes sunk down in the middle so I only trimmed the top off that one.
Also, I couldn’t find liquid food food coloring anywhere and I checked several stores. I had to use the gel. It takes pretty much a whole tube of the red gel color but it works fine. It’s just expensive. It’s nearly $5 for a box of the primary colors and if I use up the red then I have to get another one. So I’m gonna look for the liquid food coloring on Amazon or something.
One more tip. I have baked with fake buttermilk (milk with vinegar/lemon juice added) and now this time I used real buttermilk. I really think the buttermilk made it taste so much better. If you can, buy some real buttermilk!
If your family doesn’t like cream cheese frosting, here is a delicious one you can use.
5 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 sticks salted butter
I cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix flour and milk in small saucepan.cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly. Set aside to cool completely. Beat room temp butter until fluffy. Beat in sugar a little at a time. Add vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, slowly spoon in cooled flour mixture and beat till fluffy. Spread on 8” round cake or cupcakes.
That’s the same frosting that my mom made for her cake and I would always ask for it
When my mom made Red Velvet Cake, this is the frosting recipe she used INSTEAD of cream cheese frosting. To my family, this is the icing we relate to our family RED VELEVET cake.. it makes so much more decadent.
That is what we use for frosting. It’s so much better than the cream cheese one!
Literally the BEST red velvet cake ever! Made it for my family and absolutely everyone loved it so much. I reduced the sugar in the frosting and put some cornflour instead and it was perfect. The cake was super moist. Absolutely cannot wait to make it again! Thanks for a wonderful recipe.
Hi Karina, thank you for this recipe, the tastiest red velvet ever!!!
I made this cake and it was absolutely marvellous!
Thank you ☺️
Great recipe- so easy to make and yet so delicious. I made cupcakes using your recipe and lathered on cream cheese frosting! I’m loving your recipes!
Loved it. Best red velvet cake iv ever made. So thank you x
Also do you have a vegan red velvet cake recipe please?
The flavor of the cake was spot on! My frosting was sadly quite thin. After adding what I felt was copious amounts of extra powdered sugar I finally bit the bullet and added lots of cornstarch. The final result was scrumptious and I will definitely be baking again, Maybe I was a bit off with the butter cream cheese ratio. Still a winner…….You are awesome!
Make sure the butter and cheese are at the same temperature and at the slightly spreadable stage, definitely not cold! I usually whip the butter first to get it nice and creamy before adding the cheese… hope that helps :o)
I made this cake yesterday and frosted it. I kept the cake in the fridge overnight, and had it today after lunch. It was absolutely AMAZING! Thank you so much for this FANTASTIC recipe!
P.S. – I only used 29ml of red food coloring and it was still a nice bold red color.
Hi I want to use this recipe to bake red velvet cake. However I am slightly confused about the buttermilk. Do I add the extra table spoon of vinegar as stated in the recipe directly into the cake batter in addition to the home made buttermilk? Or do I omit the table spoon of vinegar if I am using home mad buttermilk? Do I only add the tablespoon of vinegar into the batter if I use shop bought buttermilk?
I’m curious about this too? Did you go ahead with the recipe, and if so what did you do in the end?
Many thanks.
Hi I made your recipe for V-Day cupcakes and they turned out amazing! I have tried several of your recipes and their Awesome! Thank you!
The 1 tbs of vinegar is an ingredient. Plus the buttermilk is an ingredient. These are two separate ingredients. So if making your own buttermilk, an extra tsp or tbs of vinegar is needed to add to the milk. I hope this makes sense.
Prior to the recipe, she explained that if you have buttermilk you don’t need to add the vinegar. If you’re not using store bought, you add vinegar to your milk to make it sour.
A bit late but, if you don’t have any store bought buttermilk, that is when you mix in the 1 tablespoon of vinegar into the 1 cup of milk. But if you have store bought buttermilk, no need to add the tablespoon of vinegar.
Thanks a bunch! My recipe is similar to yours and the cake turned out great. The only problem I had was dusting the pans with cocoa, when the cake finished baking I had to trim the cocoa off the cake because it burnt on the cake. I think the next time I will use flour for dusting as I normally do.
I learned a new word recently ‘gal’entines’. never heard of that in Australia before now. I think it’s great.
Since I had been invited to lunch with friends for Valentines Day this year I set about searching for something to take that was in keeping with the theme.
I’ve made a red velvet cake once before and thought it was okay. Looked pretty but nothing too special in the flavour stakes.
I found your recipe and gave it a go. Pretty and delicious all at the same time. It went down a treat with the ‘gals’. I followed the recipe using plain flour and real buttermilk. I struggled with the crumbing part for decoration as my trimmings were a bit too moist to crumble. It did not matter though, it still looked and tasted AMAZING. It’s a keeper.