Okay I am SO EXCITED to finally be sharing my red velvet cake recipe! This red velvet cake is so incredibly soft, full of flavor and is topped with the most delicious cream cheese buttercream. It has a super velvety texture and slightly tart, yet sweet and creamy frosting – making it the best red velvet cake recipe I’ve tried!
What exactly is a red velvet cake?!
A red velvet cake is a combination of a vanilla and chocolate cake, with a distinct tangy taste. This is due to the buttermilk and vinegar (which are common ingredients in a red velvet cake).
Traditionally, red velvet cakes didn’t have any red food coloring, and were a more brownish, reddy colour. This natural red colour was due to the chemical reaction between non-dutched cocoa powder and the acidic ingredients (white vinegar and buttermilk).
Red velvet cake is often paired with cream cheese frosting (which I have done for this cake) or ermine frosting.
How to make red velvet cake
This cake comes together really easily! Just be sure to follow the steps exactly as stated.
Begin by preheating your oven to 160°C fan forced, and grease and/or line two 8 inch cake pans (I like to use my homemade cake release). If your oven doesn’t have a fan option, then you will need to increase the baking temperature to 175°C/350°F.
For the cake batter, start off by sifting together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. By premixing our dry ingredients, it helps ensure that everything is mixed well, preventing us from overmixing our batter when we come to combining our wet ingredients with the dry, later on in the recipe.
Set your dry ingredients aside and in another bowl cream together butter, oil and sugar with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) for 2-3 minutes on a medium-high speed. This is going to incorporate air into our batter, which will give us a fluffier cake!
Next add in eggs one by one, mixing well in between each addition. Eggs add structure and moisture to our cake.
Next add in vanilla extract or essence, white vinegar and red liquid food coloring and mix until well combined.
Now the last step is to fold in our dry ingredients while alternating with 3/4s of a cup buttermilk. So to do this, add in half of your flour mixture and fold it into the wet mixture until just combined. Then add in your buttermilk, and fold that through until just combined. Lastly, add in your remaining dry ingredients and fold through until just combined.
It’s important to do this step by hand as this will prevent us from overmixing our batter and developing too much gluten. Gluten is what gives bread great structure, and although we want SOME structure for cakes, we don’t want too much otherwise it’ll make our cake tough and dense.
Once the batter is done, evenly distribute it into the two 8 inch cake tins and cook for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the cake tins for 20 minutes, before turning them out onto a cooling rack. Allow to completely cool before frosting.
How to decorate your cake
There’s no particular way to decorate a red velvet cake, but here’s how I did mine using my cream cheese frosting recipe 🙂
Now usually I would trim (or torte) the tops of my cake layers with a serrated knife to make them flat, but these red velvet layers bake up really nice and flat so no trimming was required. So I went ahead and added a generous amount of frosting to my first cake layer and smoothed it out with my offset spatula. I then placed the next cake layer on top.
I then placed some frosting on my top cake layer and spread it out with my offset spatula. I then used the excess frosting on the sides to cover the entire cake. I only did a thin layer of frosting and didn’t worry about a crumb coat because I was piping rosettes all around the cake. If you also want to pipe rosettes, then you will need to make 1.5x my cream cheese frosting recipe to ensure you have enough frosting.
I then used a 1M piping tip to pipe rosettes all around the cake! If you’re new to piping check out my beginner’s piping tutorial or 1M piping tip tutorial.
Once your cake is decorated, pop it into the fridge to allow everything to firm up. This will make it easier to cut. We don’t want cold cake though, so bring it out of the fridge about an hour or so before it’s going to be cut. If it’s still cold when you cut through it, then let it come to room temperature before eating. Trust me, it is worth the wait 😀
Commonly Asked Questions
Can I use gel food coloring instead of liquid color for this recipe?
Yes, you can use gel food coloring in replacement of liquid coloring, however you will need to dilute the gel colour with just under 3 1/2 tablespoons of water or milk to make up for the liquid lost when using gel colors. This recipe requires 3 1/2 tablespoons of liquid colour, however if using gel colours you won’t need that much as gel colours are concentrated. Additional liquid helps to thin out the batter and results in a fluffier, more velvety texture in your final cake.
Can I use this recipe to make red velvet cupcakes?
For a cupcake version of this cake, check out my red velvet cupcake recipe. It’s basically a smaller quantity of this recipe – just enough to make 12 cupcakes!
Can I use a buttermilk substitute?
A buttermilk substitute will work fine for this recipe. Check out how to make your own buttermilk substitute here.
Soft Red Velvet Cake
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
Red Velvet Cake
- 2¼ cups (275 g) flour - regular all purpose (see note 3 if you want to use cake flour)
- 3 tbsp (18 g) cornflour - also known as cornstarch
- 3 tbsp (14 g) cocoa powder - unsweetened
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt - omit if using salted butter
- 6 tbsp (86 g) unsalted butter - room temperature
- ¾ cup (141 g) unflavoured vegetable oil - I use canola
- 1¾ cups (344 g) white granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs - room temperature
- 1 tbsp (12 g) vanilla essence/extract
- 1½ tsp white vinegar
- 3½ tbsp (38 g) red liquid food colouring
- ¾ cup (158 g) buttermilk - room temperature
Cream Cheese Buttercream
- 1 batch of my cream cheese buttercream frosting recipe - see note 4 if piping rosettes around the cake like I have
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160 °C (320°F) with the fan on (see note 7 if you don't have a fan function) and grease and/or line two 8 inch cake tins (I use my homemade cake release).
- In a bowl, sift together your flour, cornflour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Using a whisk or fork, mix until well combined. Set aside.
- In another bowl, add in your butter, vegetable oil and sugar. Using an electric mixer (hand or stand mixer are both fine - see note 6), cream together for 2-3 minutes until light and creamy.
- Add in eggs one by one, mixing well in between each addition (about 10-15 seconds between eggs).
- Add in your vanilla, vinegar and red liquid food colour, and mix until well combined. Now set your mixer aside as the remainder of the batter will be finished by hand.
- Finish off by adding in half of your premixed dry ingredients to your wet mixture, and gently fold it in with a spatula until just combined. Then add in all of your buttermilk, and fold it in until just combined. Lastly, add in the remaining dry ingredients and gently fold it into the mixture until just combined. Do not overmix (see note 1).
- Distribute the batter evenly into the two 8 inch cake tins, and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Be careful not to open the oven door too early otherwise this can cause the cake layers to sink (see note 2). Also avoid overbaking the cake layers otherwise they will dry out.
- Once baked, allow them to cool in the cake tins for about 15-20 minutes, and then turn them out onto a wire rack to completely cool before frosting with my cream cheese buttercream frosting. For tips on how to frost your cake, check out the blog post above where I walk you through how I decorated mine with pictures, or watch my YouTube video below 🙂
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
558 Comments
Hi, I want to try your recipe. Is there ang buttermilk substitute that I can use?
Hi Tasnim! Check out this post for homemade buttermilk 🙂 https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/how-to-make-buttermilk/
I think something went wrong with my cake. It fell apart when I took it out of the baking tin. The toothpick was completely dry. What could be the reason? 🥹
The cake does taste good! I could make balls out of them so it doesn’t go to waste.
Hi Julia! So sorry to hear your cake didn’t quite hold together! Usually it’s because the batter was undermixed, there was too much liquid in the batter, or the cake wasn’t left to cool for long enough before taking it out of the cake tin. I would suggest mixing the batter a bit more at the end to develop more of the structure of the cake, use the gram measurements for accuracy (if you didn’t already), and let the cakes cool in the cake tins for about 20 minutes before turning them out to cool. Hope this helps for next time! 🙂
Hi Mk! I have a question. When I was beating the butter, sugar and oil, I realized my batter was not as fluffy as yours, it was on the thinner side. Could this have happened if I did not use a high enough speed, or was it my hand mixer attachments? My hand mixer attachments aren’t flat like yours, they’re thin and rounded. Do you know what I did wrong? Thank you so much! The cake still tasted delicious!
Hi Chelsea! 🙂 Usually this happens when the butter isn’t at the right consistency. Check out this video for more troubleshooting tips 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVgfSV437kI
Best Red Velvet Sponges I’ve ever made,so beautifully soft.
Thankyou for this fabulous recipe.
Awesome! So happy to hear you enjoyed it Debra 🙂
Your recipe turns out very good but i need smaller portion sizes like almost all your cake recipes will yeild 2 eight ich cakes…..if i want to half the recipe how can i half 3 eggs.do i beat one egg n use half of it?
Or can u make a video of red velvet sponge which will yeild one 6 inch cake.as i need to bake a half kg cake ( including the icing).
Waiting for your reply.
Can I bake a red velvet cake without vinegar
Hi there! Yes you can, but the vinegar does help with achieving a nice soft texture 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing your recipes, with us. However, i just wanted to mention that the tablespoons to grams conversions stated are off. 3 tbsp of cornstarch is actually 30g ..same goes for the cocoa powder.
Hi there! So happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipes 🙂 when it comes to gram conversions, I would recommend using the gram measurements for all my recipes as those are the actual measurements I use. Cups/tablespoons/teaspoon measurements are estimates, but I’ll be sure to double check them anyway 🙂
I made this red velvet cake, it sank in the middle and it wasnt red it was brown like chocolate cake, i measured all ingredients accurately, where did i go wrong?
Hi Nisha! So sorry to hear the cake didn’t quite turn out how you’d hoped, that can be very frustrating! Check out this blog post for troubleshooting tips on how to prevent cakes from sinking: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/why-did-my-cake-sink-in-the-middle/
In terms of the colour, it may be the brand of red colour you’re using. Perhaps try adding in a little more or try using some gel colour to help amplify the colour. Hope that helps!
I love your recipes and posts. Thank you for all the help in teaching me baking skills.
Can I colour or add flavoring – like caramel, to this frosting?
Thanks so much Narrell! 🙂 And yes you could totally add gel colours and flavourings that you think would work well with the cream cheese frosting 🙂
Hey. I am wanting to use this recipe for 2 8inch cake tins. Would this recipe be perfect for that? Or would I need to double? Thank you looks amazing
Hi Ruby! Yes so this recipe is designed for 2×8 inch cake tins 🙂