Red Velvet Cake is a soft, moist layered cake with a beautiful crimson color and cocoa flavor, topped with a soft and smooth cream cheese frosting. For similar flavors in a cookie form, try my Red Velvet Sugar Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting.
What is Red Velvet Cake?
Red Velvet Cakes have been around forever and started out with simple ingredients like cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar. The red color was added later, resulting in the vibrant colors we see today. It is traditionally paired with cream cheese frosting like this recipe, but red velvet cake purists often prefer an ermine (what I call cake gravy) frosting.
Ingredients
Room Temperature Ingredients: Using room temperature ingredients, specifically mayonnaise, eggs, and buttermilk in this recipe, is important for the best results.
Cocoa Powder: Look for regular unsweetened cocoa powder for the cake. You could use Dutch-processed cocoa instead, but it could have a slightly different chocolate flavor.
Mayonnaise: Before you judge adding mayonnaise to this cake, try it! It prevents the cake from becoming dry and gives it a soft and moist texture. I recommend using full-fat mayonnaise, but you could use a light variety if that is all you have on hand. Or, make your own!
Buttermilk: Just like you can make your own mayonnaise to use, you can also make your own buttermilk if you don’t have any on hand.
Food Coloring: Red food coloring puts the ‘red’ in red velvet cake. Use as much or as little as you prefer. If using gel food coloring, you will not need as much as if using liquid coloring. And yes, you can leave it out; the cake will still be delicious (but look like a light chocolate cake).
What Does Red Velvet Cake Taste Like?
In most recipes, red velvet cake tastes like a chocolate cake. But it shouldn’t taste AS rich as a traditional chocolate cake because of the addition of buttermilk and vinegar, which cut into the richness of the cocoa. However, all of that depends on the quality and selection of the ingredients. You could use a special dark cocoa or apple cider vinegar or extra-rich vanilla which would all impact the flavor.
Can I Make this Cake Ahead of Time?
Yes! You can get both the cake and the frosting made a little bit in advance. The baked cakes can be cooled, wrapped in plastic wrap, and stored at room temperature overnight. The cream cheese frosting should be stored in the refrigerator.
How to Store Red Velvet Cake
Once this cake has been frosted, it should be stored in the refrigerator, and covered. It will last up to 5 days. You could also freeze the frosted cake for up to 3 months.
Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ⅓ cup (39 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (232 g) mayonnaise, room temperature
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup (245 g) buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ounce red food coloring, more or less depending on how deep you want the color
- ½ cup hot water
- 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup (1 stick / 113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 cups (500 g) confectioners' sugar
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray 2, 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray and line each with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, red food coloring, hot water, and vinegar.
- Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.
- Divide the batter equally between the prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. A few crumbs are what you want for a MOIST cake!
- Allow the cakes to cool for 10-15 minutes in the pans. Then, turn the cakes out onto a rack to cool completely. After the cakes have cooled completely, make the frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting*
- To a large bowl, add the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla. Using a handheld mixer on medium speed, blend until the ingredients are fully incorporated and smooth.
- Add confectioners' sugar, one cup at a time, until the frosting is light and creamy.
- Cover the cooled cake in a thin layer of frosting, putting it between the layers and around the outside of the cake. Serve.
Video
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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HI! I AM SO HAPPY I GOT TO FOLLOW YOUR VLOG! THANKS SO MUCH for sharing your expertise! However I have no idea how i can get buttermilk because we don’t sell it here in Norway. Any ideas,suggestions with replacemewnt for it? I tried googling however it would be BEST to hear it from an expert like you! Again,thanks and hoping to hear from you!
Hi! Yes, you can make your own buttermilk! Take 1 cup of whole milk and add 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Let sit for about 5 minutes and you have buttermilk! 🙂
Thank u for ur recipe .i love ur chocolate cake recipe its really superb .i’ll try this tooo
How to make butter topping. What are the ingredients aside from butter.
Looked delicious! If I use gel food coloring instead of the red liquid, would it change the way the recipe turns out? I already have the gel type, and would prefer to use what I have on hand. Thanks for the recipe!
Made this and the layers came out as the smallest cake layers ever. Not impressed whatsoever.
Did you use 9-inch pans? That would result in a thinner layer and not be as visually appealing.
I am ready to make this beautiful cake but just realized I only have 9 inch pans. Snowed in so I can’t go buy them. I suppose I can make only two layers unless anyone has another suggestion?
Yup, I would make 2 layers. 🙂
I just did and the 2 layers look amazing! I can’t wait to serve for Xmas eve dessert. I will be sure to buy 8 inch pans for next time around. Thanks for the great recipe!
Hello,
Does this recipe call for regular or dutch cocoa powder?
I used regular unsweetened cocoa 😀
Natural (regular) cocoa. 🙂
If you used Dutch Process cocoa, that could make a minor difference, but not enough to make the cake skimpy and dense.
My apologies for the dryness, I never ran into that in all my testing of this recipe. I’m at a loss as to why there were any issues. This recipe was tested and tested… always with great results. I will do some research and see if I can determine why you had these specific issues.
Can tbisbrexioe be doubled or even tripled? I need to make a half sheet cake.
How many cupcakes do you suppose this recipe would make?
I just made this recipe with cupcakes and it made 24 as is. Very impressed!! Beautiful color and they have a pretty domed top instead of pancake flat like other cupcake recipes turn out.
Great to know, thank you!!