I’m so happy to share with you my all time favorite red velvet recipe! When I began baking many years ago I looked to traditional butter based red velvet cakes. While they were delicious, I found that they became hard and dry when refrigerated, due to the fact that I frost my red velvet with my cream cheese icing. It is out of this world!
I found a new recipe and began tweaking it, adding sour cream for dimension and texture and changing the mix method to improve the cakes’ structure. We use this formula for our red velvet cake layers and our cupcakes. The recipe will yield about 24 standard sized cupcakes. Make sure to beat the batter for the entire 2 minutes where indicated as this will ensure a perfectly emulsified batter that bakes up beautifully. Enjoy!
- 1¾ cups granulated white sugar (350 grams)
- 2⅓ cups cake flour (280 grams)
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1¼ cups vegetable oil
- 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
- ¼ cup sour cream, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons red food coloring
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons vinegar
- Preheat your oven to 350*F. Grease and flour 3 (8”) round cake pans.
- Sift the granulated sugar, cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and baking powder into the bowl of your stand mixer. Whisk the dry ingredients to combine them.
- Add the vegetable oil, buttermilk, sour cream, eggs, red food coloring, vanilla extract and vinegar to the mixer bowl.
- Turn the mixer to low and blend until the dry ingredients are moistened. Raise the mixer to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape your bowl and beater half way through the mixing.
- Divide the batter evenly between the 3 pans and tap the pans on the counter to release any large air bubbles. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the cakes spring back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- Cool the cakes in their pans for 15 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Yields about 46 ounces of cake batter.
Bake mini cupcakes at 335* for about 15-18 minutes
Hi Dan. Thank you so much for posting your red velvet recipe. This is the best red velvet cake I have ever made. Baked it over the weekend and it was a huge hit!!
Hey Vicki! Im so glad that you enjoyed the recipe. Sweet! Happy Baking!!
This is the best Red Velvet Cake recipe !!! Thank you for sharing with us.
You are welcome, so happy you enjoyed it!
-Dan
This recipe was spectacular! I made this for my family and it was quickly gone. I love how moist it was, and the flavor was spot on! Thank you for the great recipe, I’ll be sure to make it again! Side note, I used your tip of putting the flower nail in the middle of the pan so the cake would come out flatter and I was so glad to see it actually worked!
Hi Anais!
Thank you for the feedback, hearing about your success with the recipe made me smile 🙂
If you feel so inclined, feel free to share my blog with others!
Happy Baking,
Dan
Hi Dan,
I viewed your red velvet layer cake tutorial with the beautiful red and white swirls thru Facebook. Now, I cannot seem to find the video. I think the cake was amazingly, beautifully, simplistic in design, yet so elegant that I promised to bake it for my grandchildren for their Christmas party. Can you point me in the right direction for the video? Thanks so much!
Hi Judith! Im glad that you enjoyed the video, I appreciate the support! Here is the link
https://www.facebook.com/FoodNetworkLive/videos/1828612380745274/
Dan, would this recipe be able to be baked in (2) 9 inch pans?
Hey Bryce! You certainly can! Baking time should be similar. Enjoy!
Dan
Dan the man! This recipe is awesome, it is moist, taste great and has a wonderful texture. All your tweaking of this recipe yielded a great result. Thank you so much for sharing. You rock! Keep doing what you do!
Hi Laura! Im so glad you’ve enjoyed it!!