- By popular demand, I bring you my red velvet cake.
So good, such a classic and because I'm a little extra,
of course there's a whole buttercream rose situation on top.
But you don't have to do that
to make a delicious cake.
If you like my videos, hit that like button,
let's get started.
I'm adding half a cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
into my standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
We're gonna cream it.
(mechanical buzzing)
My butter is nice and mixed,
so now it's time to cream one and a half cups
of granulated sugar right into there.
(mechanical buzzing)
Once your butter and sugar are creamed,
we're gonna add two eggs in, one at a time.
Just make sure the first egg is mixed
before you add the second one in.
(mechanical buzzing)
Always scrape the bowl too.
My eggs are nice and incorporated
and I wanna show you the batter
before I add the vanilla in.
Look how pretty that it.
Add our tablespoon of vanilla extract in.
(mechanical buzzing)
Now it's time to sift our dry ingredients together.
So I'm gonna add in two and a half cups of flour.
And I'm using cake flour, but all purpose is fine too.
Teaspoon of baking soda.
Teaspoon of kosher salt.
Right, let's sift.
Give it a quick whisk.
I'm sifting two tablespoons of cocoa powder
into my butter mixture right now.
And just make sure you don't use Dutch-process cocoa
because it's less acidic and it basically won't react
with the buttermilk.
In theory, in our traditional old-school red velvet cake,
your cocoa powder will react
with your buttermilk and the vinegar
and have a pale chocolate, pinkish, reddish color,
hence red velvet, I think in the '40s this got changed up
and people just poured red food coloring in
to make it technicolor.
Reattaching the paddle attachment.
(mechanical buzzing)
Where's my tea towel, oh fine, it's fine.
Okay, let's scrape that bowl down.
It's a mess inside of there, don't look.
So before I pull this batter together,
I wanna show you something.
I actually don't like using food coloring that much.
Like a little bit's okay,
but a lot of it kinda scares me.
It's just a lot of dye you're putting into something.
So I made this recipe and I didn't use it,
I used a beet puree, so pretty, so natural.
You can take a look and see the batter,
it was beautiful, natural pink coloring.
And they should've had the reaction with the cocoa powder
and the buttermilk with the vinegar
and it would've made this nice soft pink color
and it had been accentuated by the beets.
But let me show you how it turned out.
This is the finished cake, which I'm not using
in the final video, but perfectly flat, beautiful layers.
I ate a little sample piece, it was delicious,
but it's totally like a caramel color.
The red faded away completely.
So, I'll figure out how to use this,
but for you, I'm making a version with the food coloring.
If you just want a beautiful light chocolate cake
with cream cheese frosting, go ahead, skip the food dye,
like I did in this version
and take out a quarter cup of the buttermilk
and add in a third of a cup of steamed beets
that you've pureed.
I'm gonna be mixing in half of the dry mixture,
half of my red buttermilk mixture.
I'm gonna add a tablespoon of vinegar into the buttermilk
and then mix the rest in.
Adding in about a quarter teaspoon of powdered food coloring
straight into the buttermilk, giving it a whisk
and I'm gonna take a look and see if it's the right color.
Now we're gonna mix in a tablespoon of vinegar
into our buttermilk.
Give it a whisk.
(mechanical buzzing)
Get the rest in.
(mechanical buzzing)
Scrape the bowl down.
Right now you can see the acids in the buttermilk
and the vinegar are reacting with the baking powder,
it's really bubbly.
I'm going to prepare my three six-inch pans
by buttering and flowering them with cocoa powder,
kick it around.
Now let's transfer that batter in.
Now I'm gonna add my cake strips
onto the exterior of the pan.
It's going into the over at 350 Fahrenheit
for about 25 to 30 minutes.
All right, my cakes are out of the oven,
cooled for five minutes and we're gonna invert them
and see how they look.
That's actually good, there's cocoa powder on the outside
so it looks darker than it is.
And they smell great.
All right, nice flat layers,
they're reddish, very red on the inside and soft.
My cakes are cooling,
and now it's time to start my frosting.
I love a cream cheese frosting,
but I don't get to make it enough
because it doesn't give you a really beautiful clean edge,
it makes it very difficult to get that.
So for my more fussy cakes, it doesn't really work.
I love it on a sheet cake, or a more rustic cake,
like today's will be.
All right, three sticks of unsalted butter
at room temperature into a standing mixer
fitted with a paddle attachment.
We'll be creaming that, but first I'm gonna sift
a pound and a half of confectioners' sugar out.
Perfect, a pound and a half and there's no mess.
All right, now we're gonna cream our butter
then we'll be adding in our confectioners' sugar
and our cream cheese.
(mechanical buzzing)
Butter is creamed and now we're gonna add in two packages
or 16 ounces of room temperature cream cheese.
Add in one teaspoon of vanilla.
Pinch of salt.
All right, my butter and cream cheese
are all creamy and creamed.
So now I'm gonna start bucketing in
my confectioners' sugar.
It looks like a lot, and it is a lot,
but it's also really fluffed up from the sifting.
Cover it with a tea towel, which I will hold onto
so it doesn't fall into the bowl.
(mechanical buzzing)
Hmm, that looks really good.
More sugar.
(mechanical buzzing)
So this is totally delicious, however,
I've been reminded that I'm baking a layer cake
so it's probably just going to like
all squeeze out of the middle.
I'm going to add in the other half pound of sugar,
which is a lot, but it's just so gooey.
If you want, you can make a red velvet sheet cake
with this recipe, leave this as is, and it's totally fine.
But if you're building a layer cake,
you need to structure it.
I reserved just enough batter to make one cupcake
which I'm gonna use to make the crumble for the cake.
The best way to get a nice uniform crumb
for your red velvet cake is to use a cheese grater
believe it or not.
I'm gonna try doing a classic rose
with a 127 tip for my first flower.
Sheer the buttercream onto your work surface
pat on your square of parchment paper
and let's get started.
I'm taking some of my think buttercream,
gonna place it on there
and make a little mound out of it.
So I'm using my 127 tip
and I'm gonna make a little spiral to start off with.
Once your spiral is complete,
you can start making little arcs that'll overlap.
There we go.
That's a perfectly nice flower and when we finish,
we'll be using our scissors to cut the flower off
and place it onto the cake.
Pipe the cream cheese frosting onto the first layer.
Add the next cake layer on.
Repeat the process twice.
Cover the cake completely in cream cheese frosting
and give it a nice smooth.
Use an offset spatula for the top
and a bench scraper for the side.
To smooth the corner of the cake,
use your offset spatula and pull in while you turn.
Make sure to clean your tool off in between each swipe.
Gently add your red velvet crumbs onto the cake's exterior
starting at the bottom and moving your way up.
Cover completely, sprinkle over the top
and pat down any crumbs that are flying away.
(upbeat music)
Place your chilled buttercream roses onto the cake
and then pipe some leaves in the gaps.
(upbeat music)
A moist light chocolate cake,
cream cheese frosting, and buttercream roses,
what could go wrong?
Basically nothing because this is a really good cake.
Okay, thanks so much for watching.
I really hope you get to make this recipe
and don't forget to subscribe.