Budget Earth

Living A Happy, Natural Life with Dogs & Other Furry Friends

You are here: Home / Food & Health / Red Velvet Cake Recipe

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

by

Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe

What is your favorite thing about the holidays? For me, it’s baking. Don’t get me wrong, I bake all year round, but during the holidays, I get to make a lot of delicious treats for my family. It isn’t too uncommon for me to make a batch of Chocolate Cherry Cookies and at least one cake to bring to Thanksgiving dinner when we go to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. While I switch off between a number of cakes, one that seems to get a lot of attention in my family is my Red Velvet cake recipe. This chocolate cake is rich, moist, and is one of the few red velvet cakes I will actually eat myself.  Since my husband absolutely loves red velvet cake, it is likely the most requested dessert I make for him, always popular for birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

My biggest issue with most red velvet cake recipes I have found is that they have a bitter aftertaste. This is mostly due to the large amounts of red food coloring. I have found that just about every recipe that uses food coloring has a bit of an aftertaste, leading to some trial and error to find just the right mixture of ingredients to have a delicious, moist cake without having to worry about that bitter aftertaste.  Since we are planning on traveling home, I decided to do something a bit new this year and make some cute red velvet cupcakes. Not only do cupcakes look adorable, but are much easier to transport than a fully decorated cake! I really hope you enjoy this recipe just as much as my own family will.  If you make it during the holidays, we would loveto hear what you think of our red velvet cake recipe!

Print

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

Print Recipe

  • Author: Susan Bewley

Ingredients

Units Scale

Red Velvet Cake Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups Cake Flour
  • 4 Teaspoons Baking Cocoa
  • 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1 1/2 cups White Sugar
  • 2 Stick Salted Butter softened
  • 2 Eggs room temperature
  • 1 cup Buttermilk
  • 1 Teaspoon White Vinegar
  • 2 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
  • 1 Bottle Red Food Coloring

Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients

  • 1 8 oz Package Cream Cheese Softened & cubed
  • 1 Box Powdered Sugar
  • 1 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
  • 1 Stick Salted Butter

Instructions

Cake Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease 2 – 9″ cake pans or put paper cups in your favorite cupcake pan.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly to make sure everything is evenly blended.
  4. Using a stand mixer, beat the sugar and butter. Once it is thoroughly mixed together, add the two eggs.
  5. Add the buttermilk to the egg mixture, and then start slowly pouring in the flour mixture, about 1/2 a cup at a time. This will help it blend without making a mess. Mix thoroughly.
  6. Add the vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring to the mixture. Feel free to adjust the food coloring in this Red Velvet Cake Recipe if you wish for the cake to be more or less red.
  7. Pour into a greased cake pan (1/2 full) or into your cupcake cups. If you are using cupcake cups, only fill to about 3/4 full.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out of the cake clean.

Cream Cheese Icing Instructions

  1. Cream the butter, cream cheese, & sugar in a stand mixer.
  2. Slowly pour in the powdered sugar and add the vanilla extract. The mixture should be thick.If you used the Red Velvet Cake Recipe above, make sure to let the cake completely cool before icing!

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!

 

 

About 

Susan Bewley is a professional writer who has been writing content online & in print format for over 10 years. As well, she is an alumni of the University of Louisville with a Masters Degree in Special Education. When not working as an online business consultant or ghost writing, she can be found writing on Budget Earth, on her own novel, or working with various entities in the pet industry.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. You always have the most delicious recipes on your blog! I love Red Velvet cupcakes, especially the cream cheese frosting on top. I think I could eat a whole bowl of it! 🙂 these look so yummy.

    • I used to make it from the box but it just never turned out right. THis recipe is super easy. I takes me about ten minutes to make the batter. I spend most of my time actually decorating 🙂

  9. Yum!  This sounds so good!  I'm going to share the frosting recipe with my sister, she makes a good red velvet, but uses a buttercream frosting.

  12. I'm not a red velvet fan but my daughter is & she would love these.  However, I would eat cream cheese frosting on just about anything YUM!!!!

    • I was terrified when I first tried decorating them but it is really easy! THe downside though is that you use more icing (upside is you get more icing 😉 )

  22. I love cake, this is mouth watering. i like baking but i think baking don't like me becaus eit always come out ugly hehehe. i also don't have all the ingredients.  I can't bake a cake as pretty as you have right here

  23. These look great. My husband's birthday is next weekend I will have to make these for him!

  26. Being from the south, I've been enjoying red velvet cake since I was a mere babe!  And, like you, I've never used the full amount of food coloring – just the one bottle.  And, sometimes, when it's not Christmas, I skip the food coloring all together and have black velvet!  Your cupcakes look amazing and now I want them for breakfast!  Thanks for sharing at Throwback Thursday!

    • I’m so glad you enjoyed them Alli!  Red velvet is one of those fun treats in my house! I have been playing with using natural dyes as well to make it even healthier. I have to admit, there have been red velvet cupcakes eaten for breakfast around here, especially when my husband sneaks them 😉
       

  28. Interesting to note your comment about the bitterness of the red food dye.  There is a natural food dye color kit out there and I have some friends who have used beet juice or beet powder successfully without affecting the flavor.  I love, love, love cream cheese frosting though….yeah, I might be a little glutonous about it.

  31. I’m a sucker for red velvet, and all things easy! LOL! They look amazing! Thank you for sharing!

  32. Red velvet cake is my favorite! We had it as our wedding cake, so it always reminds me of my wedding. This recipe sounds like a winner!

  35. Can never go wrong with cream cheese- yum! these look delicious :). My girls love to bake, I think we’ll try this one!

  36. These cupcakes look delicious, I can’t wait to give them a try. The desserts that I associate with the holidays are apple pie and pumpkin pie. Thank you for sharing this recipe.