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Red Velvet Cake

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The history of this burgundy-colored cake is “shrouded in the mists of time”. Urban legend has it that the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City charged a customer an outrageous fee when she requested the recipe, and she then typed it into a chain letter and shared it with a wide audience. There’s no truth to this, though it does seem to make the rounds repeatedly.

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Red Velvet Cake 1 Picture

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 8 tablespoons) butter
  • 1 1/3 cups (9 3/8 ounces) sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon gel paste red food color; or 1/4 cup (2 ounces) liquid red food color; or 2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) Red Velvet Cake Flavor
  • 3 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) Dutch-process cocoa
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar
  • 2 1/4 cups (9 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 cup (8 ounces) buttermilk or low-fat plain (not Greek) yogurt

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from kingarthurflour.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour two 8" round cake pans. Or lightly grease the pans, line the bottom with parchment rounds, and lightly grease the parchment, too.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar till smooth, then add the eggs one at a time, again beating till smooth. Stir in the food color, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and vinegar. Gently beat in the flour alternately with the buttermilk or yogurt, beginning and ending with the flour. The point is to keep the mixture smooth, which is more easily accomplished if you add the flour and yogurt in portions. Scoop the stiff batter into the pans; wet your fingers, and spread it to cover the bottom of the pans, smoothing the top a bit in the process.

Bake the cakes for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops feel set and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove them from the oven, and allow them to cool for 10 minutes before turning them out of the pans onto a rack to cool completely.

When the cake is cool, slice each layer horizontally, to make a total of four layers. Spread each layer with icing, stacking them as you go. We like to show off the lovely contrasting colors of this cake by frosting only the top, not the sides.

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