You’ll find red velvet cakes on dessert tables for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and other special meals like birthdays. When you want to make a cake that everyone will ooh and ahh over, This Red Velvet recipe is the one to choose. There’s something special about this smooth, rich, and brightly colored cake that everyone just loves. Would you rather have cupcakes? Try this easy recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Or make my delicious Red Velvet Brownies!
Is Red Velvet Just Chocolate Cake with Red Food Coloring?
While it might seem that we’re making a chocolate cake and dying it red, there is actually a taste difference between red velvet cake and chocolate cake. The combination of cocoa powder, vinegar, and buttermilk gives this cake a distinctly special flavor and a smooth velvety texture. These ingredients combined also create a chemical reaction that turns what should be a brown cake into a deep red/maroon color.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Key Ingredients for Red Velvet Cake
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
All-Purpose Flour: We don’t need to use cake flour for this recipe, because the added acidic ingredients in red velvet help to break down the gluten for us. Cocoa Powder: Unsweetened cocoa powder gives us the chocolatey red velvet flavor and also helps to create the beautiful color and texture of this classic cake. Baking Soda and Salt: To complete out our dry ingredients mixture, we need these two common baking ingredients. Unsalted Butter: Soften the butter before mixing up your batter. Granulated Sugar: This gives us the perfect amount of sweetness. Eggs: You need a few eggs to make a cake! I suggest letting your eggs come to room temperature before adding them to any baked good recipe. Buttermilk and Vinegar: These two ingredients are key to the texture of red velvet cake. Both are acidic and react with the alkaline baking soda and cocoa powder in the best way. Canola Oil: Both butter and oil go into this moist cake recipe. Vanilla Extract and Red Food coloring: The finishing touches to our red velvet cake batter are added to the wet ingredients for rounding out the flavors and perfecting the red velvet color. Cream Cheese Frosting: Instructions are below for making my best cream cheese frosting using butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and heavy cream. You might want to make extra, this stuff is SO good!
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Make Red Velvet Cake
Red Velvet Cake Tips
Use Gel Food Coloring: You will get a much more vibrant color from using gel-based food coloring, and you won’t be adding additional liquid that could interfere with the recipe. I like Wilton Gel Food Coloring best. If you’re in the UK, I strongly recommend using gel food coloring, the liquid stuff doesn’t work very well here. Avoid Overmixing: an overmixed cake batter will turn into a tough cake after baking. Mix ingredients just until combined. Measure Correctly: I have some tricks for making sure you’re measuring your ingredients correctly! When baking, it’s important to accurately measure everything to get the best results in the end. Use Good Cake Pans: For beautiful layer cakes, straight-sided cake pans will give you the best results. I use these 9-inch nonstick pans and get amazing results every time. For Easier Frosting: Use an offset spatula to get smooth frosting on your cakes easily. It’s great for frosting cookies and cupcakes too. Love Layer Cakes? Try making this amazing (and gluten-free!) Carrot Cake, an Easy Banana Cake, a Chocolate Sunflower Cake, or a Funfetti Layer Cake.
How to Store Red Velvet Cake
Store your cake in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to three days. You can also freeze this cake and frosting, separately, if you plan to serve it in the next 3 months. Wrap each cake layer with plastic wrap and place it into an airtight container before freezing. Allow to thaw fully before stacking and frosting.
What to Serve with Red Velvet Cake
It depends. What special occasion are you celebrating with a Red Velvet Cake? For a special, romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner, Serve Marry Me Chicken or Salmon Wellington. Is it Christmas? You should make this Honey Baked Ham with Broccoli Casserole. To impress everyone at a big Family Dinner, try making my Bacon Wrapped Chicken Breasts, or a delicious Garlic Herb Butter Roast Chicken. Serve either with creamy Boursin Mashed Potatoes. Save this recipe! I know that after you taste it you’ll want to make it again and again! © Little Sunny Kitchen
