Red Velvet Cake is unbelievably MOIST and fluffy, made with cocoa powder, buttermilk, and sour cream, ready to frost in only 45 minutes!
When it comes time for Valentine’s Day, and you can’t go wrong with favorite V-day recipes like Red Velvet Cake, Red Velvet Sheet Cake, Chocolate Lava Cake, and Chocolate Truffles.
Sabrina’s Red Velvet Cake Recipe
Red Velvet Cake is a CLASSIC recipe, made from sour cream and buttermilk for an incredibly moist and velvety texture, along with cocoa powder and food coloring to help give it the signature red color. That lovely red color will not only be good for Valentine’s Day, but it will also be beautiful at Christmas!
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 ounce red food color
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda into a large bowl and add the salt to it.
- In a stand mixer whisk together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add in the eggs one at a time.
- Whisk in the sour cream, milk, red food coloring, and vanilla then add in the flour until just barely mixed in (do not overmix).
- Pour into two 9-inch cake pans and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and let cool completely before frosting.
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Notes
Nutrition
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About This Recipe
Make this cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, and top with chocolate shavings, cookie crumbs, red sprinkles, or cake crumbs if you like trimming on top. You can use piping tips for the cream cheese frosting to add decoration to the top of the cake, or just decorate with extra red velvet crumbs! This cake batter is also perfect for making layer cakes, cupcakes, or even cake pops.
Chef’s Tips: More Decorating Ideas
- Frost the cake with cream cheese frosting, then top with mini chocolate chips, meringue cookies, or white chocolate chips.
- Add cream cheese frosting between each cake layer, then dust the top with confectioner’s sugar or drizzle with Chocolate Ganache.
- After frosting, top with chopped pecans, walnuts, or almonds.
Baking Red Velvet Cake Tips and Tricks
- Cake Flour: Cake flour gives cakes a lighter and finer texture compared to all purpose flour. If you don’t have cake flour, you can substitute 1 cup (14 tablespoons) of all purpose flour, plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch.
- Espresso: Because this cake is similar to chocolate cake, you can add more flavor with a tablespoon of espresso powder or bold instant coffee powder.
- Cake Texture: Watch your cooking time and temperature to keep the cake recipe as moist as possible. The cake is done baking when a toothpick comes out clean. Check it about 5 minutes before it’s supposed to be done, just in case, then increase the baking time as needed from there.
- Pans: Use good quality cake pans to make this red velvet. Good pans will conduct heat better, and your cake will turn out with better texture and won’t burn on the bottom.
- Buttermilk: Buttermilk is ideal, but if you don’t have it you can curdle regular milk with ½ teaspoon of lemon juice. Let it sit for a few minutes before using for my Red Velvet recipe.
- Frosting Flair: Add some sprinkles or food coloring into the cream cheese to make the frosting more decorative.
How to Store
- Serve: This cake can be left unfrosted at room temperature, but if you frost it with dairy based frosting, refrigerate it after two hours.
- Store: Red Velvet Cake can be stored at room temperature, but if you add cream cheese or buttercream (dairy-based frosting) I would recommend refrigerating your cake for up to a week. If you don’t have frosting and just leave the cake wrapped on the counter, it will last 2-3 days.
- Freeze: You can also freeze this cake fully decorated. Freeze for an hour or so uncovered, then when the frosting is frozen, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for up to 3-4 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Red velvet cake has its signature red color, but it’s more than just chocolate cake with red food coloring. It also has acidic ingredients like buttermilk and sour cream, which react with the cocoa powder to turn it red and give it a fluffy texture. Some red velvet recipes also contain vinegar for this reason. Chocolate cake also has more cocoa, while red velvet cake just puts enough in for flavor and color, but it’s not a true chocolate cake.
You can use gel or liquid food coloring for this dessert, but you may need to add more liquid than gel to get the color you want.
Most dutch-processed cocoa powders you’ll find nowadays are treated differently when they’re produced, so it’s hard to get the red color from just the ingredients, which is why you’ll see red food coloring in most recipes now. Beetroot was used to give Red Velvet Cake its red color, when other ingredients weren’t regularly available. Now you’ll find food coloring in its place but you can still use Beetroot as a natural alternative.
Related Recipes
More Chocolate Cakes
Photos used in a previous version of this post:
First I want to say Hallelujah for this recipe!!! Made two half sheet cakes that turned out beautiful!
Question is for an 8” and 6” heart shaped cake using this recipe? How long do you think I should bake?
Summer! What a cute idea. The 8″ pan will take approximately 30 – 40 minutes and the 6″ pan will take approximately 25 – 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Please let us know how they turn out!
growing up my mom always made this cake for me but with cook frosting not cream cheese frosting
Nice! Enjoy 🙂
My husband’s favorite cake is red velvet, so I was excited to make this for him and surprise him. It turned out so good! He absolutely LOVED it!
I LOVE red velvet anything!! But, this cake is to die for!! It’s soft & moist & I love the layer of frosting in the middle.
Made this for my sister’s birthday and she LOVED it! We all did! So moist and fluffy and delicious!
My ultimate favorite cake!!! This is the easiest recipe to follow and my go-to, Always. Thanks for posting!
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this is a great cake the red color surprise my family thank you for recipe
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
Absolutely the best red velvet cake! I’ve made different variations and this one is by far my family’s favorite. Thank you for sharing.
I’m so glad you all enjoyed it, Hope. Thanks for the 5 stars.
I’m making this for a birthday party this weekend. I was thinking about using both expresso powder and chocolate chips folded into the batter to make it extra special but I’m concerned using both will make the chocolate flavor overpowering. What do you think?
Are your layers normally thick as seen in the picture. The cake rose but not as high as your picture.
Have you checked the expiration of your baking soda lately?
Is a regular electric mixer ok instead of a stand mixer?
Yes 🙂
Mam I m pure vegetarian so please send me the eggless recepie of red velvet cake
I’ve not tested a vegetarian version of this recipe so I’m not comfortable giving a recommendation. If you decide to try, I’d love to know what works. Thanks!
Is this cake sturdy enough for the bottom layer of a tiered cake?
I made it into a 2 layer cake. 🙂
My wife and I made this together yesterday and can I just say it turned out fabulous. Nice and moist, great texture, very rich and yummy.
Thanks so much for coming back to let me know how much you both enjoyed it!
This is a gorgeous red velvet cake!! We loved it!
I’m so glad you guys enjoyed it! Thanks for coming back to let me know!
This cake looks DIVINE! Love that cream cheese frosting on top!
I am going to make this this weekend! My friend will love it for her birthday!
How sweet of you! Hope she enjoys it!
This was a huge hit in my house! Everyone loved it!
Yay! Thanks for coming back to let me know.
Today i tried this recipe…… It was delicious moist and soft texture…. Thank you very much
So glad you enjoyed! Thanks for letting me know!
This is the perfect red velvet cake! So moist and fluffy!
Thanks, Ashley!