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
How would I split it for two 4 inch layers ?
Hello Leila! 🙂 So 1 x this recipe would make about 8 4 inch cake layers, so for two you would need to make a smaller amount of the batter. I wouldn’t recommend reducing the batter by more than 1/2 so what you could do is make 1/2 the recipe and then use the extra batter for cupcakes or more 4 inch cake layers. Hope that helps 🙂
I think this cake is simply divine. Made it on my own and what a treat it was! Perfecto! Thank you so much.
Awesome! So so happy to hear you enjoyed the red velvet cake Ismail 😀
Hi, this recipe looks great and my daughter has requested red velvet for her birthday cake. would it be ok to bake two days ahead? or is suitable for freezing?
Many thanks.
Hi Tiffany! 🙂 You can totally bake this cake in advance, but to keep it nice and moist I would recommend decorating it with the frosting (make sure the cake layers are completely covered) and then refrigerate the cake. Simply pull it out of the fridge atleast a few hours before it’s going to be served to allow it to fully come to room temperature. You can also put a bit of simple syrup on the cake layers while decorating to ensure it stays nice and moist. Hope this helps!
Hi, this recipe looks delicious and I want to try it out. If I want to make 3 8 inch layers should I add 1/2x to the recipe?
Hi Julianna! Yes that’s correct so you want to make 1.5x the recipe 🙂 hope you enjoy it!
Hey, just wanted to confirm if your cup measurements are accurate? My cakes never are perfect when i follow any recipe’s cup measurements idk why, so I tried to convert your grams to us cups using internet , but found measurements different from yours . I believe your one is the right one, still it will be nice if you could confirm. Also 1 cup= 237 ml, isn’t it?
Hi Nabila! 🙂 Cup measurements can be tricky as they can slightly vary in size, and even online different websites will have slightly different gram measurements. What I prefer to do is bake via weight (I use gram measurements) and then I will estimate how many cups it converts too by weighing it with my US measuring cups I have at home. If you’re finding it tricky baking with cups and your cakes don’t seem to be coming out quite right, then I would highly recommend investing in a cheap digital scale and using the gram measurements as it is far more accurate 🙂 and yes 1 US cup is just under 237ml. Hope that helps!
Hi Maryam just wanted to know how you would I scale down to a 6 inch cake using this recipe? Thank you x
Hi Maze! 🙂 For two 6 inch cakes you would want to make half the recipe, and for a single 6 inch cake technically a 1/4 of the recipe will work but I would probably suggest still sticking to half the recipe and perhaps using the rest of the batter for cupcakes as sometimes scaling down or up too much can affect the batter 🙂
Awww thank you so much! Can’t wait to try it, would cooking time still be around 30 minutes at 160 fan oven? x
I loved the flavor and texture of this cake! I wanted it to be a touch more moist, but loved everything else about it. I thought the instructions were clear too. Thank you for the recipe!
Hi Krystal! So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe and found the instructions helpful :). The cake should be super moist once baked, so some tips I could suggest for next time is to perhaps reduce the cooking time by a few minutes, and using gram measurements (if you didn’t already) and hopefully that will help with some extra moisture 🙂 thanks so much again for the wonderful feedback!
If you follow the recipe and ingredients
Correctly, this recipe is amazing! Made it for my nieces 14th birthday and it went down a treat! I can’t stop raving about your recipes. Your Oreo cookie cake was also a hit! Cannot wait to try the other recipes! Keep the recipes coming!
Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback Benita! So happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipes 😀
Hi Maryam, just wondering is it ok to use the gel food coloring instead of liquid? Thanks
Hi Maz! Gel food colouring will work too but I would suggest adding additional water to the gel colour and almost make it a liquid food colouring to make up for the lack of liquid in the gel colour 🙂
The cake is alright, but definitely not my favourite red velvet cake. It’s nice with the icing. I wouldn’t make it again. It requires too much oil and butter and sugar for the size. I feel like the instructions start to become quite unclear in step 6, so I just followed the video instructions instead.
Hi Steve! 🙂 Sorry to hear the cake didn’t quite turn out how you’d hoped. I’ve had so many rave reviews for this recipe and I’m guttered you didn’t have the same experience! Appreciate your suggestion regarding the steps being a little unclear, will take that feedback on and see how I can make the steps a little clearer 🙂