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.
566 Comments
Hi there, I need to make a “castle” cake so I want to bake one square cake . I have a corningware dish . It is 4 inches deep and 9 inches wide on all sides. Can I bake the cake in this dish if I line it with Wax paper and spray the dish well?
Hi Liz! You can bake the cake in a 9-inch square Corningware dish if it’s well lined with parchment and sprayed. Just keep in mind that because the batter will be much deeper, it may affect how the cake rises and bakes. I generally don’t recommend putting too much batter into one tin, as this recipe is designed to be baked in two 8-inch pans for the best texture and even rise. If you do go ahead with one pan, it will likely need a longer bake time, so be sure to check for doneness with a skewer. Hope that helps! 😊
Hi!! The place where I live is at an altitude of 2300 meters above sea level. Should I use the same amount of ingredientes or do I need to change something? Thanks ☺️
Hi Nicol! 😊
I’m not very familiar with high altitude baking, so I’m not too sure about the exact adjustments needed sorry! If you do try it, I would recommend keeping an eye on the bake time and checking the cake early, as things can bake faster at higher altitudes. Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the recipe! 😊
Hi! Love this recipe! By chance do you have a recipe for a pink velvet cake where no cocoa powder is used?
Hi Chanel! So glad you’re enjoying this recipe 😀
The closest I have to that is my white cake recipe which you can find here: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/moist-white-cake/
Hope that helps!
When using x1 of ingredients the cake is perfect but I needed a larger cake so used x2 of ingredients in larger tins this needed 45 to 50 minutes in the oven to get the middle of the cakes cooked but then an inch or so of the outside of each cake was over baked and unpleasant to eat. Any tips to make this a large cake to feed 25ish would be appreciated thank you
Hi Jane! 🙂 When doubling the recipe for a larger cake, the edges can cook faster than the middle especially if the cake tins used are too small. I recommend using large enough tins like 10 inch tins where the thickness of the cake layers are similar to the original recipe (if the tins are not large enough the cake layers will be too thick and take too long to bake). Other things that help can be to lower the oven temperature slightly and bake longer, or using cake strips to help prevent over-baking/browning. Hope that helps for next time 🙂
I love red velvet cake, and had attempted one last year without much success. The other day my friend’s daughter requested it for her 11th birthday, so I came to the internet to find a new recipe. This one worked perfectly! I had cake flour, so I used that, and I also had gel food coloring so I used about 1 ½ tsp and then 3 tbsp water. Came out great and it was gone in less than 24 hours! Oh, and the frosting was the best cream cheese frosting I have tried. Thank you for making a little girl happy!
Yay! So happy to hear it was a success Valerie 🙂
This was the decadent red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting I remember from my childhood. MK’s pro tips for every step of the recipe make it fool proof! Cake flour is a must! Thank you for this incredible recipe. It recieved rave reviews at a dinner party AND most importantly with my family! This is as good as Mom’s!!!
Aww I am so glad to hear you and your family loved the recipe Laura! 😀
Really appreciate the wonderful feedback 🙂
Hi MK
I tried this cake yesterday for valentine’s day and surprised my husband. It turned out so perfect, it was moist and delicious.
I am a new baker, so this was an achievement for me.
Thank you, i even tried your Swiss meringue buttercream recipe with it which was soo good.
Aww that makes me so happy Sakshi! So glad it turned out awesome and that you enjoyed the Swiss meringue buttercream too 😀
Hi Ma’am
How much serving is this ?
Hi Pawandeep! You can get 12 large slices out of this cake, or about 20-25 smaller servings (if cutting into smaller rectangles) 🙂
Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the recipe!
this is the best recipe i ve seen so far and i appreciate the fact that it was properly explained, thank you very much for this .
Thanks so much Lady Deborah 😀
So glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂
Hi mk
How to make butter milk
Hi Liza! Check out this blog post 🙂 https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/how-to-make-buttermilk/