Traditional Red Velvet Cake Recipe (2024)

Watch my Southern red velvet cake web story here.

Where Did Red Velvet Cake Come From?

There are two schools of thought about the origins of this festive cake.

1. Some people say that the original red color was caused as a reaction between the acidic cocoa powder and buttermilk with the baking soda. So in that case, red velvet is a type of chocolate cake.
2. The other school of thought is that a food coloring manufacturer, Betty Adams of Adams Extracts, developed a cake recipe using red food coloring as an integral ingredient. This recipe contained cake flour and buttermilk for tenderness and just a hint of cocoa powder to keep the red color vibrant. You can find that red velvet cake, labeled as “original,”on the Adams Extract site.

The recipe is described as being frosted with either “classic white icing,” or cream cheese frosting.

Classic white icing=ermine frosting. Huzzah!

So if you really want to make a traditional version, make sure to use Adams Extracts red food coloring in your recipe!

And of course, it is totally fine to use your favorite red food coloring.

PRO TIP: Make sure you are using liquid food coloring rather than gel coloring. You need the liquid form to make sure the cake contains enough liquid.

Is This Cake Just Chocolate Cake with Food Coloring?

The short answer to this question is no. There is not enough chocolate (in the form of cocoa) to make this a truly chocolate cake.

If you were to leave the red food coloring out, the cake would most likely be a pale beige color at best.

What Makes This Recipe Work

Traditional red velvet cake, at least as it evolved in the mid-20th century, gets its red hue from food coloring rather than from a reaction between cocoa powder and vinegar.

The recipe does contain a bit of cocoa–just enough that you can taste it without it reading as a real chocolate cake.

Buttermilk not only provides some of the acid to react with the baking soda, but it also makes for a very tender cake.

For the tightest, most velvety crumb, use cake flour. Know that you can use either cake flour or all-purpose though.

PRO TIP: Use cake flour for the finest texture and most velvety crumb.

Using brown sugar deepens the flavor of the cake. You can use light or dark brown sugar here.

For an excellent discussion of this cake (and excellent all-around recipes for desserts) check out Stella Parks’s wonderful BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts.

How to Make Your Cake

Please scroll down for the whole recipe which includes amounts. This section is for your convenience to make sure you have all the ingredients you need. If you don’t need the help, you can always jump straight to the recipe.

Ingredients

As with most cake recipes, you most likely have all the ingredients you will need already. Here’s a checklist for you:

• cake flour or all purpose flour: you can use either. I have made this cake both ways, and you will get excellent results either way
• American cocoa powder (not Dutch process): provides a light chocolate flavor without overpowering the delicate flavor
• baking soda: together with the vinegar, it provides the lift. Do not substitute with baking powder, which already contains an acid
• buttermilk: I use full-fat, but non-fat or low-fat will work also. You can substitute with soured milk (1 Tablespoon lemon juice in 1 cup milk), but buttermilk lasts for a ridiculously long time in the fridge, so I always keep some on hand
• red food coloring: use liquid and not gel coloring. If you do use gel, add a tablespoon of water to make sure there’s enough liquid in your cake
• vanilla: extract or paste will work here
• brown sugar: I like using brown sugar because it adds a bit more flavor than granulated sugar, but you can also use granulated
• eggs: provide structure, protein, and emulsifiers
• vegetable oil: use a neutral vegetable oil that doesn’t have much flavor on its own
• salt: I use kosher salt in this recipe. If you have table salt or fine salt, reduce the amount by about 1/3.
• vinegar: provides the acid that creates the lift in reaction with the baking soda. You can use apple cider vinegar or plain white vinegar. I’ve used both, and since you only need a small amount, you cannot taste it in the finished cake. Speaking of vinegar, listen to the wonderful As We Eat podcast about what’s in your pantry. They reference this red velvet cake recipe.

Mixing Method

Old-school red velvet cake is made using a modified creaming method.

Since the fat in the cake is liquid, you cannot expect to get really good aeration from beating the oil and sugar together as you would butter and sugar.

All the leavening comes from the reaction of the vinegar and buttermilk and baking soda, which is why the vinegar is added last.

Once you mix in the vinegar, get the cake into the oven pronto so you don’t lose all the bubbles that the chemical reaction creates.

Here’s how to mix up your cake:

1. Put the flour, baking soda, and cocoa powder in your sifter.
2. Sift into a large bowl and give it a whisk to combine it evenly.
3. Mix buttermilk, red food coloring, and oil
4. Mix together oil, sugar, and salt with a hand mixer or stand mixer
5. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until opaque and thick
6. Alternate adding dry ingredients and wet ingredients
7. Mix in vinegar last, pan up your batter, and get it into the oven ASAP

In the collage above:

1. Evenly divide the batter between prepared pans.
2. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
3. What the finished cake looks like. Note it should be just barely drawing away from the sides of the pan
4. The cooled layers with the domes slices off. I recommend using a serrated knife for this step.

Cake Baking Tips & Tricks for Success

I have baked hundreds of cakes, both at home and the restaurant. Here are some tips I have picked up along the way to make baking about as fool-proof as possible.

• Heat your oven for a good 30 minutes before you start making your batter. It takes much less time for the air in the oven to reach baking temperature than it does for the oven box itself to heat up, so give it plenty of time, well after the oven tells you it’s ready.
• Bake with parchment circles in the bottoms of your pans and spray the sides well with pan spray. This almost completely eliminates sticking. You can buy cut-to-size parchment circles or cut your own from rectangular sheets
• Put your pans on a half-sheet pan to go into the oven. A standard half-sheet will hold 3 6″ pans or 2 8-9″ pans. Placing them on a sheet pan keeps your oven clean in case there is an accidental spill and also makes it much easier to rotate pans and remove them from the oven
• Allow cakes to cool in pans for 10-15 minutes before turning them out on cooling racks. Make sure you flip them so they cool right side up. If you let them cool upside down and they are domed (like most baking soda-leavened cakes are), they can crack and may fall apart

My Favorite Baking Pans for Red Velvet (and Other) Cakes

When baking cakes, whether you are making a 3-layer 6″ cake or a 2-layer 8″-9″ cake, you can’t go wrong with Fat Daddio pans.

They are lightweight, have straight, 2″ sides, are light in color to help keep your cakes from over-baking, and they last and last.

Decorating This Cake

An old-fashioned cake calls for old-fashioned decorations.

Since this cake has a beautiful, deep red crumb, crumble the cake domes and use them for decoration.

As you can see in the photos, for the 6″, 3-layer “naked cake,” I used the crumbs and a stencil to create a heart on top of the cake.

For the 8″ cake that is fully frosted, I used the crumbs to completely coat the sides and then just gave the top a light dusting of crumbs.

Red Velvet Cake Q & A

More Delicious Cake Recipes

If you love this recipe, here are some other cakes on my site you might enjoy as well.

• Rocky Road Cake–a delicious vintage-style chocolate sheet cake reimagined with rocky road frosting. Because sometimes more is more!
• Butterscotch Sheetcake–an easy sheet cake that doesn’t require eggs or milk topped with a rich butterscotch cream cheese frosting
• Eclair Cake–this cake is made with pate de choux as the base, homemade vanilla pudding as the filling and then gets topped with whipped cream and chocolate ganache. Think of it as a “slab eclair!”

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

A Note About Measurements

It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.

You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.

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Thank you so much for taking the time!

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And there it is, gang. A beautiful, tender red cake with perfect white frosting. For my money, it doesn’t get more old school or more Southern than that.

Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. Take care, and have a lovely day.