I love Red Velvet Cake with a rich cream cheese frosting. I especially like it piped with extra swirls and roses around the bottom and top. Even better is to throw in a few chocolate and white chocolate shavings on the top! Yum.

I made this lovely cake again this past week–about a month after posting the original recipe and had a friend help me decorate it. I think you will love the way it turned out. If you’ve never tasted Red Velvet Cake you don’t know what you’re missing. My friend mentioned that she’d never had a Red Velvet Cake that didn’t taste dry or even over-cooked. But when she tried it last night she admitted this recipe is moist and delicious. This recipe for Red Velvet Cake is truly delightful and superior to any other recipe for it I’ve tried.

What do you think? Doesn’t this look yummy? It’s really a beautiful cake to make either during the Christmas holidays or Valentine’s day. But I made it for a special occasion yesterday. All the ladies who tried it thought it was delicious! It certainly is one of my favorite cakes.

Here is a piece removed from the cake. You can see my trusty toothpick which holds the cake layers together.

I have two recipes for Red Velvet Cake. The main difference is in the icing. This one has a cream cheese frosting so I’ve determined to showcase it first. I got this recipe from Sheila Cook, wife of Dr. Gary Cook, president of Dallas Baptist University when she was hosting an afternoon party for students around Christmas one year when I worked there. She had made it in an oblong pan and cut it down to pieces about the size of petit fours, as I recall. It was absolutely fabulous. I have no idea where Sheila found the recipe but it has been around for awhile.

Unfortunately, this is probably the best close up I have of an individual piece of cake. It got gobbled up pretty fast.

Here’s what I did.

Here is the flour, sugar, baking soda, and cocoa. This is supposed to be mixed with oil. You can see it in the background.

This is what the batter looks like after mixing those five ingredients.

I added vanilla and eggs, and in the background are buttermilk and an ounce of red food coloring. If you don’t have buttermilk you can take a cup of milk and and a couple of tablespoonfuls of vinegar or lemon juice and let it sit on the counter for about 5 minutes. It will curd and you will have soured milk.

All the ingredients are mixed here and ready to go into baking pans.

Grease and flour baking pans. Make sure you tilt the pans so the sides get floured too.

Try to spread the batter evenly among the three baking pans.

Bake in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes or so – mine took 30 minutes to cook. Insert a toothpick in the center and when it comes out clean the cakes are baked.

For the icing you need to soften your butter. I had to soften it in the microwave slightly since I forgot to pull it out of the freezer. Don’t let all this butter scare you! This was 4 times the normal batch because I was making 3 cakes with cream cheese icing at once.

The cream cheese had been sitting out on the counter for several hours so it was softened.

I added vanilla to the butter and cream cheese in the mixing bowl.

Mix those three ingredients with a beater.

Begin adding powdered sugar. You may have to add more powdered sugar than the recipe calls for if the mixture seems weepy.

Here’s the cream cheese frosting plain.

This recipe normally calls for pecans to be added to the batter. If I wasn’t going to be decorating the cake I would have done this.

This is what the frosting looks like when you add the nuts to it.

Insert one of the baked cake layers onto your serving plate. I normally place the plate on top of the cake. Invert the plate. Slap the bottom of the cake pan several times so it comes out. If you greased and floured your pan well the cake will come out easily with no difficulties.

Spread cream cheese lavishly on top of the cake. This is a supposed to be a rich, decadent cake. Don’t be stingy with the icing. I usually make a double batch for this cake. I would recommend that you do that too.

Place the second layer of cake atop the frosting on the first layer. I use toothpicks around the perimeter and one in the center of the cake to hold the layers together so they don’t slide off and make a mess. Push toothpicks down into the cake so they no longer show or be felt.

Top the second layer of cake with another thick layer of frosting.

Place the third layer of cake on top of the other layers. I usually like to turn the cake so the top side is up. That’s not how most bakers do it, but since this is a cake for a fun occasion and not a wedding cake where I was going to mess with leveling the cake, this layer is easier to spread icing on without accidentally getting pieces of cake into the frosting. Place toothpicks into the cake and push them down so they are into layer number 2.

Dollop your icing on top of the cake and spread.

I hope you can see how thickly I apply the icing.

Frost the sides of the cake.

I wanted to decorate the top so I patted the nuts called for in the icing around the side of the cake. I just kind of gobbed them on with my hands! Sorry don’t have any good tips for this.

Here I am decorating the Red Velvet Cake. All of the design and most of the decorating was done by my friend, Laureen Herman. I have her to thank for the great ideas on my Italian Cream Cake, Carrot Cake and Red Velvet Cake.

Here’s a picture of Laureen. Oh, my, can this lady decorate cakes! She’s amazing. Very creative. I can’t even aspire to her level of creativity. Take a look at her design on my Carrot Cake recipe. It is simply amazing. Laureen brought her whole huge box of cake decorating stuff to my house to help me with these cakes. She gets credit for the beautiful presentation of these three cakes on my website.

Here’s another picture of me adding some of the cute little decorations on top of the Red Velvet Cake

We decided to put some of these cute doo-dads on the sides of the cake also. This can be a messy process. We had to wipe our hands and the implements we were using all the time.

Here’s another picture of me squirting on the colored cream cheese frosting as decoration.

Here’s one more.

The sides are done. Now we just have to decorate the top. We tried to use a striped red and white border on the bottom and the ribbons that hang down the cake.

Here Laureen is adding the flour petals.

We made the top red “flower” and froze it on wax paper to harden it so we could put it on top of the cake without messing everything else up.

I think the design turned out beautifully. Laureen did an amazing job.

Here’s a picture of the cake at our progressive dinner with a piece of the cake removed so you can see the texture.

Here’s another look from a distance.

This photo shows another piece being cut with a piece on the side.

Here’s the recipe.

RED VELVET CAKE

(Recipe from Sheila Cook, wife of President, Dr. Gary Cook, Dallas Baptist University)

2 ½ cups flour

1 ½ cups sugar

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cocoa

2 eggs

1 ½ cups oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 bottle red food coloring (1 fluid ounce)

1 cup buttermilk

Mix flour sugar, soda and cocoa with oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Bake in oven at 350° for 15-20 minutes in 3 9” greased and floured baking pans. (Vary time if using only 2 layers or oblong pan.) My cakes took a full 30 minutes to bake thoroughly. Double icing recipe if you want an extremely rich cake. (I highly recommend this step, especially if you want to use any of the icing for decoration).

ICING:

8-oz. cream cheese

1 stick butter (her recipe calls for margarine, I always use butter in frostings)

1 box powdered sugar

1 cup chopped nuts

1 tsp. vanilla

Soften cream cheese and butter. Mix all ingredients together and spread on cooled cake.

NOTE: This will not be enough icing for 3 layers, only for oblong or 2 layers.

We had pretty well hacked into this cake by now.

Here’s another piece.

And another one where you can see the toothpick! Time to get your fork and enjoy!

You may also enjoy these recipes:

Carrot Cake

Italian Cream Cake

Tips for Baking Cakes

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