Best Red Velvet Cake (2024)

The most incredible Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting! Fluffy, soft, buttery and moist with the most perfect velvet texture!

Super easy to make Red Velvet Cake issimilar to the original recipe that started it all!Made entirely from scratch with a few tips and tricks, this is one cake that takes centre stage! Softer than most cakes with a mouth-watering velvet-like texture in each bite.

Any cake that layeredand slatheredwith a cream cheese frosting (carrot cake comes to mind) can sit by me with a huge spoon. Out of all cakes on this blog, this one is my favourite.

Red Velvet Cake

Is it chocolate? Is it vanilla? WHAT IS IT! Essentially it’s a chocolate cake made with little cocoa powder. The cocoa reacts with the acidic vinegar and buttermilk, and in turn keeps the cake moist, light, and fluffy. The chocolate taste is fairly mild but the flavours are delicately rich.

How To Make Red Velvet Cake

This red velvet cake has been adapted from The New York Times, with slight adjustments to the ingredients and the addition of oil for an even softer, richer and buttery melt-in-your-mouth cake. We tested a few versions with just butter, some with only oil, and some with half a dozen eggs! Truthfully, the one we are publishing is the best and received high praise from everyone who tried it. Both young and old!

With all the testing I have a few tips to get you the best results!

• Cake flour— We tried this version with both all purpose/plain flour and cake flour, and the cake flour version resulted in a softer, velvety cake, fooling everyone into thinking we had purchased it from an expensive baker! You can certainly use all purpose though if that’s all you have. You will still get an incredible cake.
• Oil — This addition guarantees a moist sponge. Mix it together with your cocoa powder and red dye so the three incorporate really well into the cake batter. This ensures the cocoa powder is mostly dissolved before being mixed through.
• Buttermilk OR milk with vinegar – We tried one version using buttermilk plus vinegar and one version making our own buttermilk, souring full cream milk with 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar before starting. Both worked INCREDIBLY well!

BAKING PANS

The batter is then split into two separate 8-inch baking pans to create two layers. We tried it with 9-inch pans and while the texture was good, the layers were a little too thin for our liking. Trim the dome on top away so the top layer sits better on the bottom layer. When trimming, you will feel how moist this cake really is! Try to save these pieces to decorate the cake with later! (Good luck not sneaking some pieces to eat! If you start, you won’t be able to stop.)

Just like myBest Fudgy Chocolate Cake, this Red Velvet Cake is so super addictive it’s hard to stop at one piece! Not overly sweet, but perfectly rich at the same time. You’ll see what I mean when you try it!

Looking for more red velvet recipes

Red Velvet French Toast| The Best Red Velvet Churros| Red Velvet Marble Waffles

Red Velvet Cake on Video