Red Velvet Pound Cake is a delicate, yet dense, cake that has a slight, but not too sweet chocolate flavor with a cream cheese frosting as the icing on the cake, literally! Try my Red Velvet Cake for a more traditional red velvet cake.
Red Velvet Pound Cake
The rich and dense texture of this Red Velvet Pound Cake starts with a cream cheese pound cake base with a hint of cocoa for a subtle chocolate flavor, and a touch of red food coloring for that classic crimson color. Topped with a thick cream cheese frosting, this cake recipe is sure to satisfy your cravings!
Ingredients & Substitutions
Cake Flour: Cake flour brings a fine crumb to cakes. It is lower in protein than all-purpose flour, which gives baked goods a delicate, tender crumb.
Buttermilk: Use full-fat buttermilk in this recipe. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own!
Red Food Coloring: Start with one teaspoon of red food coloring. You can always add more until you get the shade of red you are going for.
Room Temperature Ingredients: I can’t stress enough that this recipe needs to be made with room temperature ingredients (butter, cream cheese, buttermilk, milk). This will ensure easier mixing and helps achieve that perfect crumb.
Tips for a Perfectly Baked Cake
- The outside of the cake should appear firm and done, but should not be burnt.
- Use a long skewer or toothpick around the 1 hour mark to check for doneness. If you find a few crumbs on your skewer or toothpick, that is GOOD, your pound cake is done baking. Wet batter on the skewer means it needs to bake longer.
- If you notice that the top is browning too quickly, you can cover it with a foil tent.
How to Store & Freeze Pound Cake
- To keep pound cake fresh, store without the frosting at room temperature for 2-3 days.
- If adding the frosting right away, it will need to be stored in the refrigerator because of the cream cheese. Stored in the refrigerator, this pound cake will last up to 5 days, covered.
- To freeze the pound cake, I recommend freezing it without the frosting. Wrap the cake tightly in a couple of layers of plastic wrap and a layer of aluminum foil. You can freeze this cake for up to 3 months. (Don’t forget to label and date it!) Allow the cake to thaw overnight in the refrigerator before adding the frosting and serving.
More Pound Cake Recipes
Red Velvet Pound Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 block (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (2 ½ sticks / 284 g) salted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups (600 g) granulated sugar
- 6 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups (375 g) cake flour
- ¼ cup (29.5 g) cocoa powder
- ¼ cup (60 g) buttermilk, room temperature
- 1-3 teaspoons red food coloring, or enough to reach the desired color
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ block (4 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
- 2 ½ cups (312.5 g) confectioners' sugar
- 2 tablespoons whole milk, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with non-stick spray.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 3 minutes.
- Gradually add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla.
- Slowly add the cake flour and cocoa powder. Mix until combined.
- Remove bowl from stand mixer and pour in the buttermilk. Mix by hand until just incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl to get every last bit of ingredient incorporated.
- Fold in the food coloring, one teaspoon at a time, until the desired color is reached.
- Pour batter into prepared bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check for doneness at 1 hour. (The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few crumbs, but no wet batter.)
- Allow cake to cool to room temperature before inverting on a plate and adding frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- In a medium bowl using a hand mixer on medium speed, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth.
- Drizzle the frosting over the cooled pound cake. Slice and serve.
Did you make this recipe?
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I love all your recipes! Thank you for sharing!
I don’t recommend this cake recipe. It’s thick and has to much cocoa powder. It over power the whole cake.
Can you put pecans in the icing?
Loved it, came out perfect
I made this for my son’s 26th birthday. My husband has asked that I make another. It was so good & most.
I can’t wait to try more recipes.
The texture was lovely as expected, a dense but moist crumb. For me a baking time of 1 hour and 10 minutes was perfect. It rises great, probably because of the many eggs. No vinegar is needed because the cream cheese and buttercream already added some acidity. I used a magenta pink food colouring which combined with the brown cocao into a lovely deep red.
My only gripe is that it was too sweet for my taste. I’m surprised to see comments saying the cocao was too overpowering, I actually felt that the sugar was overpowering the other flavours. I would have liked to taste more cocao, vanilla, tartness and a hint of salt. I might reduce the sugar next time but I wonder how much it will affect the texture.
I will try the recipe and later give comments
Saw a recipe that used buttermilk to thin cream frosting to make a drizzle to balance sweet. Make red velvet every Valentine’s Day.
I have made this cake 6 times. The first was beautiful. The rest done the same keep falling. Great taste but …
I made this particular cake for a customer and it came out perfect I made a slight change in the recipe but all is well.
Does this recipe not use baking powder or baking soda ?