Red Velvet Cake Recipe

For February, there didn’t seem to be a more appropriate recipe to try than Red Velvet Cake. Known for its light consistency and red colour, the cake is perfect for Valentine’s Day. I opted to stick with one of my favourite baking recipe sites, BBC Good Food recipe to give this one a go. Here is how I got on…

Ingredients

For the cake

• 150g/5½oz unsalted butter, softened
• 150g/5½oz golden caster
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 free-range eggs , lightly beaten
• 4 tbsp Greek-style yoghurt
• 1-2 drops red food colouring
• 150g/5½oz self-raising flour
• 50g/1¾oz cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

For the icing

• 100g/3½oz butter
• 200g/7oz cream cheese
• 500g/1lb 2oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 170C/325F/gas 3. Grease and line a deep, round 15cm/6in tin.

2. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition (if the mixture looks curdled add a spoonful of the flour.)

3. Mix the yogurt with the food colouring – it should look very, very red since the mixture will fade once cooked. Beat the yogurt into the cake mixture.

4. Fold in the remaining flour and cocoa powder, followed by the milk until well combined. Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until well risen and golden-brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

5. Remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool for five minutes, then place onto a cooling rack and set aside to cool completely.

6. For the icing, mix the butter and cream cheese together in a bowl. Then beat in the icing sugar a little at a time. Once all the icing sugar has been added, add the lemon juice and beat the icing for five minutes or until paler in colour.

7. Slice the cake into three equal layers and sandwich them together with the icing. Finish with a layer of icing on top.

Verdict

Makes a delicious light sponge, rather like a regular Victoria sponge, but with a subtle chocolatey taste perfect for cupcakes. The cream cheese frosting has become a real favourite as it works so well on lots of different cakes. I like to add it to a lemon or a rich Guinness chocolate cake due to its simple, creamy flavour.My main tip for making a smooth mixture is to slightly soften the butter first in the microwave and then to make the buttercream as you usually would first before adding in the cream cheese. This will help to keep out any lumps of butter for a smoother finish.

The most challenging part of this bake was definitely finding the perfect ratio of cocoa powder to red food colouring. Ideally, I wanted the cake to be a bright, rich red. However, the first time I made it, I found that the moment the cocoa powder was added to the mixture, the colour turned a deep, purpley brown rather than red. The second time I experimented by adding half icing sugar and half cocoa powder in a bid to maintain the colour. However, the flavour was not as strong. In the end, I used a whole container of red food colouring but it still came out with a deep browny red colour. Having studied other recipes, I think it may be the quality of the colouring with added beetroot juice to get the rich, red colour. If anyone has any good tips to improve on this, let me know.

Overall, I would say this is a good recipe that makes a light, sponge. The recipe says it makes enough for three layers, but I found it to be the perfect amount of mixture for two good size layers using 18 inch round cake tins.