Red Velvet Cake

I’ve been cream cheese crazy for the past three weeks. Last week, I managed to turn out two Blueberry Cheesecakes for my office co-workers. And last night, I had extra cheese to experiment on a sort of Black Forest Cheesecake. Yum!

Aside from cheesecakes, one of the best uses for cream cheese is frosting. It has a wonderful flavor and goes incredibly well with a lot of cake recipes. But still, the ultimate pairing for cream cheese frosting is the Red Velvet Cake.

In my opinion, the Red Velvet Cake is the moistest cake ever, while managing to be really light. And it has such a wonderfully rich red color that simply whets my appetite. I love eating it, and I love making it.

Red Velvet Cake

This particular recipe is adapted from Bakerella. She has other wonderful stuff in her site, so don’t forget to go on over. The ingredients are the same, but I changed the steps around a bit to get more consistent results every time I make this one (I’ve baked 5 Red Velvet Cakes over the past month 🙂 ). This cake gets its incredible lightness care of the trusty buttermilk, same as the Buttermilk-Blueberry Breakfast Cake. In that entry, you can find helpful substitutions for buttermilk, in case you find it difficult to get your hands on some.

Just cooling down…

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 oz. red food coloring

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Grease and flour two 8-inch pans.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda.

In another bowl, beat together the eggs, salt and the sugar until fluffy. Beat in the remaining wet ingredients.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix on medium-high until well combined (make sure there is a minimum amount of lumps of dry flour). Pour the batter into the pans and tap to release any trapped air bubbles.

Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

After about 10 minutes, remove the cakes from the pans and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Beautiful white cream cheese frosting makes everything fine

Ingredients

• 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 cups confectioners’ sugar

Steps

Sift sugar and set aside.

Beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla.

Then, add the sugar in batches. Scrape down the sides in between each addition.

Yum! 🙂