The perfect Red Velvet Cake recipe

So I have found the holy grail of red velvet cakes for us amateur bakers! I bake often enough but I don’t own a scale and my oven is so average- yet this cake came out splendidly and I can’t wait to make it again! I bought a cheap sandwich cake tin from Checkers – along with all the ingredients and please note that cream cheese is NOT creamed cottage cheese, they are different things altogether.

This was an amazing recipe and although I only make two layers next time I’m aiming on 4! I always get a bit nervous doing red velvets because sometimes the colour comes out too brown, the outside of the cupcakes is too hard and gosh – they can just bugger up by not rising as much as others! Not this recipe, I made perfect little cupcakes, and a cake with it. Oh! Make sure your oven has preheated..so it’s at the right temp when you pop your goodies in!

*My amateur baking advice: some experience with the this recipe has taught me to firstly, cook a cake on less heat for longer rather then at 180 degrees and then the top rises too fast and the outside of the cake becomes hard! So I prefer using a heat of 160 degrees and placing the cake tin in the – middle of the middle – of the oven. That means the middle height and width. It depends what cake tin you use and how big it is! I like using sandwich tins which take short amount of time and they are thin. I make a double layer cake in the end. OH! Good advice, let you cake cool down for a loooooooong time. Like 30mins to an hour at least before you ice it. I also have learnt to put some butter into my cream cheese icing and firm it up a bit, so the icing is stiff enough to use an icing ba or even a butter knife to icing it with – if it runs then your cake is too warm or the icing is too runny – stick it in the fridge for a few minutes so the icing doesn’t sulk down. Practice makes perfect in my opinion. OH! Lastly, I prefer using a toothpick to test if the batter is cooked, so stick it in the middle of the cake when you think it’s done. The toothpick should be pulled out and come out clean if the cake is baked fully. You can usually see it’s risen and smell the cake in the oven, when it gets close to being done.*

THE PERFECT

Red Velvet Cake (or cupcakes)

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I just use any old cocoa in the shops)

1 teaspoons salt

1 1/3 cups oil (I use sunflower or canola)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

4 Tablespoons liquid red food coloring

1 teaspoonsvanilla essence

1 cup buttermilk (I use the cultured so non-lumpy one)

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsuis. Prepare cupcake pan with liners, or butter and flour cake pans and line bottoms with parchment.

2. In a large bowl whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt, and set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer (fitted with the whisk attachment), beat oil and sugar until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, and continue beating. Add food coloring and vanilla and mix well.

4. Add flour and buttermilk alternately, in two batches. Scrap down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix just enough to combine.

5. Place baking soda in a bowl or cup, add vinegar and stir (it will foam and expand). Add to cake batter and beat for 10 seconds.

6. Fill cupcake liners 2/3-3/4 full, or divide batter between cake pans. Bake cupcakes 20-24 minutes. Bake cake layers 25-40 minutes depending on the size of the pans.

This recipe will yield about 24 cupcakes or I it made 3 layers with my small sandwich cake tin.

Cream Cheese Icing:

I found this by trial and error! Basically you need to find one that you like and stick to that recipe, I don’t like butter icing so I put as little as possible in all my icings. Make sure your cake and cupcakes have cooled down – I usually leave mine sitting on cooling rack for 20-30mins.

Need:

- 1 tub (230g) cream cheese (Simonsberg is my fave)

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1-2tablespoons of warm water

- 4 cups icing sugar

I then added the icing sugar cup by cup inbetween adding the cream cheese tablespoon at a time and mixing. Then add the butter early on (after the first cup of icing sugar). The hot water is just what I add very little of to get the right texture and add it teaspoon at a time toward the end if your icing is too hard, all depends on what you want! I keep quite smooth to do a run it on a whole cake and bit firmer if I want to pipe icing onto cupcakes.

The recipe is adapted from an inspiring baking blog Glorious Treats (I LOVE THIS BLOG)

xkathcake