Easy red velvet cake recipe
Delicious easy-to-follow recipes for food lovers! This post may contain affiliate links. Classic Red Velvet Cake with a delicious tang from the buttermilk, hints of cocoa and a moist, easy red velvet cake recipe crumb. And let’s not forget the best cream cheese icing on this earth!
Have you ever had really great Red Velvet Cake? If you’ve had great Red Velvet Cake you probably remember the delicious tang from the buttermilk, the hints of cocoa, gorgeous red color and the moist, light crumb. And let’s not forget the best cream cheese icing on this earth! Real deal Red Velvet Cake always has vinegar and buttermilk in the mix. Occasionally you might find Red Velvet cake recipes that include red food color but not the vinegar and buttermilk. They may be called Red Velvet, but it won’t taste the same or have that wonderful texture. The history of Red Velvet cake is interesting and thought to have been developed during the Victorian Era.
The cake we enjoy today, with red food coloring, probably came about during the depression when a Texas company starting selling red food dye. This made Red Velvet Cake climb in popularity to the iconic showstopper we know and love today. You can make your own red food dye by using beet juice but for this cake we used a one-ounce bottle of liquid red food coloring. I have a story about an infamous Red Velvet Cake. While growing up Red Velvet cake was my favorite and always the one I asked for each year on my birthday. My mom made great cakes and I always loved her Red Velvet Cake, until I tried to make it.
It was around the time my husband and I got engaged. I was trying to impress him with my baking abilities and it was his birthday so I decided to make my favorite cake in the whole world, Red Velvet. I made the homemade cake and was pleased that it looked so pretty! Three layers with cream cheese, pecans complete with candles. We did the birthday song and presents but much to my dismay, the cake was really, really dry. I over-baked it a bit, I think.
Sometimes those handwritten recipes don’t include ALL the pertinent information. Such as reduce the cooking time if you make three layers instead of two. Oh well, it didn’t taste terrible, it was just very dry. I thought the cream cheese frosting covered any flaws the cake might have had, at least a little. Being the supportive fiancé he was, he ate a few bites of cake each time I pulled it out of the fridge.
A couple of days after his birthday we went on a weekend camping trip and I slipped the leftover cake in the cooler. I was determined not to waste it because after all, it was homemade and wasn’t that bad! Finally Ed had to tell the truth. Trish, this cake is not very good and I just can’t eat anymore. I agree it’s a little dry. I pitched the giant hunk of leftover cake in the blazing fire thinking it would quickly dissolve.
We laughed and laughed and from then on it was called the Duraflame cake. Our children have never wanted to try Red Velvet cake and who can blame them! But come on guys, it has been over 33 years! 25 years later I tried again. The cake I made in 2010 was pretty good and not as dry as the Duraflame cake, but I still wasn’t thrilled.
I was going to make another Red Velvet Cake this time with a holiday theme. Thank goodness I’m a much better cake maker than I used to be. And this time I fixed mom’s recipe by reworking it into this amazingly moist and delicious chocolate cake you see here! Mom’s original recipe called for vegetable shortening, like Crisco. I felt like the shortening was making the cake dry and tough, so I switched it out for unsalted butter. Then I added more butter and used full-fat buttermilk. Now we’re talking about the perfect Red Velvet Cake!
This is the Red Velvet Cake I dream about! Our new and improved Red Velvet Cake is moist and tender, with a lovely tang that I’d recognize if I ate it blindfolded. The flavor might remind you of chocolate devil’s food cake, but with terrific flair! It took me a long time, actually decades, but Mom’s cake is now a keeper.
