A moist, classic Red Velvet Cake!! Made from scratch, and surprisingly easy when a few specific, simple steps are followed. This iconic cake has a soft “velvet” texture, just like what you get from the best top end fine bakeries, and is topped with soft, cream cheese frosting.
After Red Velvet Cupcakes? Here they are! UK readers: Please read note 7.
Red Velvet Cake recipe – tried and tested favourite!
This Red Velvet Cake has been taste tested and given a big thumbs up by many people because it’s a rather large cake and I’ve made it 5 times in the last two weeks.
“FIVE TIMES??!!”, I hear you exclaim (out loud or in your head). “You’re MAD!!”
If getting this cake exactly to my taste, as close as I can get it to the cakes you get from posh bakeries, and ensuring it works using both US and metric (i.e. rest of the world!!) measures means that I’m a mad baker, I’ll take that title. 😉
Besides, I’m really enjoying baking at the moment. There is something so satisfying about making something as pretty as Red Velvet Cake.
To tell you the honest truth, the reason I made it so many times in recent weeks is because my original recipe got a “so-so” response from the two toughest taste-testers I know: my mother and brother.
“The sponge is zara-zara”, my mother declared on first bite.
What the….?? Zara-zara? What on earth does that mean??
“Zara-zara” means “rough” in Japanese. The Japanese language has a handful of words which sound like what it means. “Zara-zara” being a perfect example. Usually it cracks me up. Not that day.
I gasped, indignant, and grabbed a spoon to shovel a bite into my mouth, ready to argue. And I realised – she was right. It was not as velvety as it could be. As it should be.
NOT HAPPY.
So I improved it. 🙂
What is Red Velvet Cake?
Red Velvet Cake is not just a chocolate cake with red food colouring added. This cake is softer than most, “velvet-like”, and the chocolate taste is actually quite mild. It’s more like a cross between a vanilla and chocolate cake with a very subtle tang from buttermilk. And it is generously smothered in a fluffy cream cheese frosting.
It’s wildly popular in America and there’s a cult following in Australia. Give it a few years, it will become a firm favourite soon!
The cake tastes buttery and moist, because it has butter in it for flavour, and oil for moisture. Yes, you need both, I promise you. It is not the same if you use only one of them.
Why should you use THIS Red Velvet Cake!
There are 3 more specific things about this recipe which might be a bit different to other Red Velvet recipes you have seen, but there’s a reason for it.
1. Cake flour – it’s a must! It’s key to achieving that soft silky sponge, just like what you get from posh bakeries. However, if you really can’t find it, please see the notes for a substitute;
2. Only 2 eggs – I’ve seen some recipes call for up to 5 eggs. I only use 2. It’s enough to hold the cake together just fine – any more than 2, and find the cake begins to start tasting “eggy”; and
3. Buttermilk – For almost every other baking recipe that I make using buttermilk, I say that you can substitute with lemon juice + milk which, when left for 5 minutes, curdles to have the same effect as using buttermilk. Not for this recipe – sorry! It is just not the same – part of the reason mine was “zara zara”. 😂
Oh, and one more rule. There is no substitute for Philadelphia Cream Cheese for the frosting. I’ve tried better value store-brand cream cheese before. It is never the same. Promise. ❤
I bake the layers in 2 separate tins, but if you don’t have two tins, you can make one big one and cut the cake in half. And to make the layers nice and neat, I cut the dome top off.
I like to crumble the off cuts and use it to decorate the cake. I think it looks pretty, don’t you? But that’s purely optional!
I promise you, there is nothing tricky about this cake. All you have to do is ensure you measure the ingredients properly, rather than just eye-balling it. 😉 As long as you do that, it’s actually easy to make, no more difficult than an ordinary sponge cake.
Putting aside fiddly fancy decorated cakes, Red Velvet Cake is surely one of the most striking and stunning cakes around. If you’ve never tried it before, you’re in for a real treat! – Nagi x
Red Velvet Cake
Watch how to make it
How to make Red Velvet Cake – quick tutorial video! Red Velvet Cake for UK readers – please ensure you read Notes 7 and 9.
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Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 2/3 cups (400 g) plain cake flour (Note 1)
- 2 tbsp (10 g) cocoa powder , unsweetened
- 1 tsp (5 g) baking soda / bi-carb soda , NOT baking powder (Note 2)
- Pinch of salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter , softened (1 US stick)
- 1 1/2 cups (330 g) caster / superfine white sugar (Note 3a)
- 2 eggs , at room temperature (around 2 oz / 60g each)
- 1 cup (250ml) vegetable oil
- 1 tsp white vinegar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (or essence)
- 1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk , at room temperature (Note 4)
- 2 1/2 tbsp red food colouring liquid (UK: use Gel, Note 7)
Frosting (Note 10)
- 14 oz (400 g) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, block , softened but not too soft (UK see Note 9)
- 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter , softened (but not too soft)
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups (450 g) soft icing sugar / powdered sugar sifted (Note 3b)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F (all oven types). Butter 2 x 21cm / 8″ round cake pans (sides and base) and dust with cocoa powder.
- Sift the Dry Ingredients and whisk to combine in a bowl.
- Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with electric beater or in stand mixer until smooth and well combined (use paddle attachment if using stand mixer).
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between to combine. At first it will look curdle – keep beating until it’s smooth.
- Add vegetable oil, vinegar, vanilla, buttermilk and red food colouring. Beat until combined and smooth (Note 5).
- Add Dry Ingredients. Beat until just combined – some small lumps is ok, that’s better than over mixing.
- Divide batter between cake pans. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes on the same shelf, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. (Note 6)
- Rest for 10 minutes in the pan then turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.
Frosting
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla for 3 minutes (this makes it really smooth and changes from yellow to almost white). Add icing sugar and beat for 2 minutes or until frosting is light and fluffy to your taste. If your frosting seems too runny (depends on quality of cream cheese/ if the cream cheese was too soft), just add more icing sugar.
Frost Cake
- Cut the top off the cake using a serrated knife (to make the layers neat).
- Spread one cake with 1 1/2 cups of frosting. Top with the other cake. Spread top and sides with remaining frosting.
- Optional: Crumble offcuts and use to decorate the top rim and base of the cake.
Recipe Notes:
Let them eat cake! 10 more classic cakes
.Life of Dozer
This is how he starts every day: assessing the surf. 😉
Nick Kostaras says
Hi Nagi!
Thank you for the recipe.
When you say 25 minutes baking time, you mean this time when baking
in convection (air circulation in the oven) or regural program?
What did you do?
Thank you!
Nagi says
Hi Nick! Either is fine – I’ve made in both and the difference is negligible so for this recipe, I use the same temp for both 🙂 N x
Nick Kostaras says
Thank you for your responce. My pans are 7,3 inches actually. When I baked the cakes, at 25 minutes they where raised OK but when I tried to take the cakes out and pulled them from the rack, they moved like there was water inside them. So I left them 15 more minutes. Was that a correct additional time (because of the smaller pans) or should I have checked them at 30 minutes with a toothpick. I mean shouldnt I be afraid of that watery movement, and check them?
Nagi says
Hi Nick, I’m afraid it sounds like you oven runs a little cool 🙁 It definitely should not take that long to bake, yes if they are wobbly like water when you pull them out then they are undercooked. Try turning the temp up slightly!
Kerri says
Hi Nagi,
I have a question for you, I want to make this cake for a baby shower, my tin is 10″ . Because there’s a lot of people to feed cake to, do you think I could use the whole recipe in the one tin and then make another so that I’ve got two of the 10″ cakes? I’m not sure myself if the frosting would hold up the weight of the cake if it was larger! I’d appreciate your thoughts, thank you!
Nagi says
Hi Kerri! I would scale up the recipe by 50% to use 2 x 10″ pans 🙂 Use the slider on Servings to scale the recipe! N x
Isabell says
I have a 25cm cake tin and want to use your recipe as the bottom layer of a two tier cake – hence the size of the tin. Could I cook all the batter in one tin then split in half and if so how long do you think.
Nagi says
Hi Isabell! You can definitely cook in one tin but if you use a 25cm tin then it will be very thin 🙂 N x
Zoe says
Hi!
I want to use this recipe as a middle layer in wedding cake! Do you think the recipe with be okay in a 10inch tin? Slightly bigger dimension but not sure if the quantities will fit! I have never made red velvet cake before. Any help is really appreciated because this looks fantastic!!
Nagi says
Hi Zoe! If you put this all in 1 x 10″ tin it will be a bit thick I think BUT it will be easy to trim to desired thickness and better to make it too thick and trim rather than not thick enough!
Tegan says
Hi,
Just wondering if it was 180C for a conventional or fan forced oven?
Thanks!!
Nagi says
Hi Tegan! All oven types 🙂 Bake time difference is negligible between conventional and fan so I just use the same for both!
Nuru Nakibirige says
Hello Nagi, thanks for the recipe, I want to bake this cake for my son’s birthday tomorrow. I can’t find buttercream and cream cheese please help me with a substitute for👆🏻. And I only have one cake pan, how long should I bake this????
Neshi says
Made this cake for New years and the whole family love it ! 10/10 best cake I have made =) Thank you for the Recipe !
meeshay says
I never made nor even tasted red velvet until I made this cake and I can’t believe I got so lucky on the first try to find such a good recipe! My co-worker is going to be ecstatic when she receives this cake!
Elisabeth Sardeman-Benes says
Made this cake for Christmas. Sublime!
My daughter said she now only wants this cake for birthdays. The cream cheese I used was mon chou because I could not find the Philadelphia block. For the dye I used 2 teaspoons (Dutch size not Amarican) powder dye.
Many thanks for this great recipy!
Nagi says
That’s so great to hear Elisabeth! Thanks for letting me know – N x ❤️
Viv says
Hi Nagi!
Tried your recipe and it is awesome! Would like to know if this recipe would work for red velvet cupcakes as well?
Kenny Lynn Enguerra says
This is amazing Nagi! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe! I tried it and it was a massive hit with the family on Christmas; velvety texture ❤️
Amelia says
I was asked by a customer for a Red Velvet cake for a Christmas party, I made a sample last week using your recipe as I’ve never made one before and wanted them to try it out before making their 2 tier Christmas’s cake. They LOVED it! I also had a try and oh my goodness! Delicious flavour…GREAT texture, just perfect!! Thank you so much! Merry Christmas to you from the UK xx
Nagi says
That’s terrific to hear Amelia! So glad you enjoyed this, thanks for letting me know. Merry Christmas to you too! – N x ❤️
Lynne Friesen says
HI Nagi
Question about 1 tsp of 5g baking soda / bi-carb soda, do I actually use either/ or as these two are actually not the same. I have both so do I use 1 tsp of bi-carbonate. .
Nagi says
Hi Lynne! Bi carb and baking soda are the same thing. It is baking POWDER that is different 🙂 Just use 1 tsp of baking soda please!
Mashaan says
I’m going to make this cake this weekend. I have never made a red velvet cake so I hope I don’t fail. In South Africa we rarely get Philadelphia cream cheese bloks so I got the lancewood full cream blok hope it works just as well.
HnS says
The cake was amazing. After another recipe failed, this was a life saver!!
Nagi says
Love hearing that HnS!! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know – N x ❤️
Gup says
I really want to make this but sadly you cannot purchase buttermilk here in Sweden! I might give it ago anyway but there isn’t much I can do besides substitute the butter milk.
Nagi says
That’s ok Gup! use the sub in the recipe!
Donna McNally says
Hello, I see your recipe states to use 8 inch pans. My pans are 9 inch pans (it appears 8 inch pans are no longer available in the big box stores in the US). Will this recipe work for these pans? Should I reduce cooking time?
Thanks
Nagi says
That will be fine Donna! Just reduce the cook time by 3 minutes, not much!
Lillian Fulton says
Can you freeze this cake? Trying to plan for Christmas day with alot of items to cook and would like to freeze as much as possible. Maybe freeze cake before frosting and then frosting day before? Thoughts?
Nagi says
That should be fine Lillian! I haven’t tried it but I see no reason why it wouldn’t work 🙂 N x
Stacey DeLoach-Jackson says
I made this at Thanksgiving this year and it was a hit! This is by far the best Red Velvet recipe I’ve tried and I have tried several. I will definitely make this again!
Nagi says
That’s so great to hear Stacey! Thanks for letting me know – N x ❤️
Beena says
Hi nagi, Im thinking of making this wonderful looking cake for my daughters birthday as a unicorn cake. Do you think the icing is of a piping consistency for me to pipe the ‘mane’ part on?
Nagi says
Hi Beena! Yes it sure will 🙂 It is very soft frosting but will hold it’s shape if piped. It’s like whipped cream, but not quite as soft and airy. Happy birthday to your daughter! N x
Beena says
This was the best cake I’ve ever made! So soft, so moist and so delicious, thank you so much!
Bev says
Been looking for a red velvet recipe for ages and this one looks fabulous. However, I think it would be helpful to indicate the depth of 8” tin required. I used standard ones, about 3cm deep and the mixture overflowed so deeper ones would be better…..unless I did something wrong. Looking forward to icing and eating it though😀