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One slice of red velvet cake on a white plate

The Best Red Velvet Cake

The Best Red Velvet Cake. We borrowed the best elements from several other red velvet recipes to create this outstanding recipe with double cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans. Irresistible!

Course Cakes/Dessert
Cuisine North American
Keyword red velvet cake
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 16 Servings
Calories 558 kcal
Author Barry C. Parsons

Ingredients

For the cake

  • cups all purpose flour
  • cups cake flour
  • cups sugar
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • tsp baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tbsp cocoa
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • cups buttermilk
  • 2 large eggs
  • tsp liquid red food coloring
  • teaspoon white vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 cup chopped toasted pecans (optional for garnish)

For the cream cheese frosting

  • cups (12 ounces) cream cheese
  • ¾ cup butter
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 8 cups icing sugar A 1 kilo/2 lb bag.
  • 1-3 tbsp milk; enough to bring the frosting to a spreadable consistency

Instructions

To make the cake

  1. Grease two 9 inch cake pans and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Sift together the flour, cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa.
  3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, blend together well, the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla extract.
  4. Mix in the dry ingredients all at once and blend until smooth. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
  5. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  6. Turn cakes onto a wire rack, remove the parchment paper and allow to cool completely. When the cake is completely cool, you can cut the two layers into 4 using a sharp serrated bread knife if you like or just have 2 layers in you prefer. I think the four layers helps to get a good ratio of cake to frosting in each bite.
  7. If you are adding the toasted pecans, sprinkle ¼ cup of them over each layer of frosting as you construct the cake.

To make the Cream Cheese Frosting

  1. Mix all the ingredients together and beat well until smooth and fluffy.

Recipe Notes

The frosting in this recipe does make enough for 4 layers or to frost a 2 layer cake completely on all sides. If you would just like to serve it as a 2 layer with no frosting on the sides, just half the frosting recipe.