Red Velvet Cake with homemade cream cheese frosting
The Red Velvet- I was enamoured with the colour and texture of this beautiful cake ever since I saw it for the first time and dug into it, at a small patisserie in Edinburgh. The allure of this double-hued delight mesmerized the eye and the taste buds! I promised myself I’d bake it someday.
Now, baking is something that I have taught myself pretty late in life. I am not your natural expert baker. Hence started a series of trials, in more ways than one! The Red Velvet had me on my toes the past few weeks, seemingly mocking all my efforts!
The first attempt was complete rubbish! By the third, I got the crumb right but the colour couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be mahogany or burgundy :-/. The beet ‘route’ didn’t work for me at all and I decided food colour was the way to go!
Yesterday my friend Sirisha Mantha posted a lovely chocolate-date cake recipe on the facebook food group I am a memeber of. It said cocoa,it said vanilla, it said buttermilk- My heart said
Red Velvet!!
So here is my version of the red velvet – beautiful red colour, perfectly soft crumb and delectably moist!
I make no claim to its authenticity as a true red velvet but a big slice of this with some capsicum corn pockets on a plate and I had all the three guys at home smiling wide!
Red Velvet Cake
All Purpose flour/Maida – 1 ½ cup
Sugar – 1 cup
Eggs – 2
Butter – 1/2 cup
Butter milk – 3/4 cup
Baking powder- 1 tsp
Cocoa powder – 1 Tbsp
Vanilla extract – 1 Tsp
Liquid Red food colour- 1 Tsp ( Add slowly and adjust as per the shade of the red desired)
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 9 inch pan
In medium sized bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder and baking powder 2-3 times
In a big bowl, beat the butter and sugar till creamy. Add egg to the butter-sugar mixture and mix well.Add in the buttermilk and mix.Now add the red food colour gradually till you get the desired shade of red. I used a little more than one tsp.Add the flour mix in three batches, mixing after each addition. Add in the vanilla essence.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.Let it cool fully, cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour. This helps in slicing the cake.After an hour, remove from the fridge and with the big serrated knife slice horizontally into two halves
Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese is difficult to come by in the small town I live, so I made mine at home.
Fresh homemade cottage cheese- 200 grams(Find the recipe here for making cottage cheese at home)
Thick Yogurt/curd 2-3 Tbsp
Powdered Sugar- 1 Tbsp
Heavy Cream 200 Mils
Vanilla essence ½ tsp
Crumble the cottage cheese and blend with the powdered sugar and 2 Tbsp of yogurt adding more yogurt only if required. Ensure that the yogurt/curd is not sour. The mixture needs to be thick, creamy and smooth. This is your homemade cream cheese.
Beat the heavy cream till stiff peaks form and gently fold in the cream cheese and the vanilla essence.
Spread the cream cheese frosting between the two layers of the cake. Cover the top and the sides generously. Smooth over with a wet spatula. Actually, I quite liked the rustic look.
Slice and enjoy!
CafeGarima 
Garima ur cakes looks delicious
Thank you so much Vidhya 🙂
Gorgeous work G
Honoured Sonal! Am really happy having done this one 🙂
Can i use amul butter milk? And again when you say heavy cream can i use amul fresh cream? Not that am a fan of anul brand but just that they are easily available 🙂
Hi Sutupa. Amul buttermilk will be fine.
Amul cream is not heavy cream as it is 25% and won’t thicken as desired. Try looking for Rich or Tropolite heavy cream/whipping cream.
Thanks for visiting 🙂
lovely it looks 🙂 …it might be silly but can you give me the measurements in gms n ml for the cake pls. thanks
Hi Jyoti
Thanks for dropping by. I am a new baker myself so not very well versed with the conversions. I used the standard measuring cups you get at the super market. Let me figure this out and come back.
Cheers!
M a big fan of urs garima
Swati 🙂
What a lovely looking cake. ❤
Thanks Jhuls ❤
M a big fan of urs garima…found u at CAL
Thanks a lot Swati. Hope you enjoy the recipes. Cheers! 🙂
hey garima.. could you find out the convesions to grams ..I really want to try this out .
Hi Jyoti
Haven’t baked this again since then. You could try with the conversions here
http://allrecipes.com/howto/cup-to-gram-conversions/
This is a reliable site. You should be good 🙂
Happy baking!
Garibaldi ur a fab cook .. Proud to follow ur recipes 🙂
Thanks a lot Vaishali 🙂
Lovely cake. Cud u give me sum tip on whipping cream and the peaks. I did try once but the cream was still not quite stiff. Cn overbeating cause it to remain liquid
Hi Meher
To start with the cream has to be the right kind- heavy/whipping cream
Chill it in the refrigerator before you start beating it
Over beating will cause it to separate into butter and buttermilk.
I feel you are using regular cooking cream (maybe Amul). You need to look for Rich or Tropolite.
Hope this helps 🙂
Hi garima tryg this cake today again. Last time hd messed vt the cream which refused to stiffen. Keeping fingers crossed this time. Hv kept the cake in refrigerator Vl start the frosting part
All the best Meher. Hope it works well this time around ❤
The cake turned out well. I finally got over my cream phobia. It came out stiff and nice. Thank u so much.
Ah nice!! Happy for you 🙂
Looks delicious! I am not a fan of the beet version either. 😦
Thanks Aruna 🙂 The beet version came out sickeningly sweet and tacky.
This one was okayed by the boys with a big thumbs up! 😀
as i said its aheavenly treat from dessert queen….gorgeous dont even wish to wink my eyes out of it….lovely…
You are so very sweet and kind honey ❤ thanks a big bunch 🙂
❤ <3..
Great colour!!! Love it!!!😍
Thank you so much ❤
How do you cook so wonderful di, just admire you 🙂 ❤
Thanks a lot Malar. How sweet! ❤ and I admire your wonderful food!
Garima I also want to try this cake but how can I make it eggless?
Hi Preety
Usually I substitute 1/4 cup thick curd for one egg but have not tried with this one.
Sorry
Here is a link on substitution. Maybe this helps
http://m.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html
Also look at this
http://www.egglesscooking.com/
Looks great. .. wanted to try this for first time… wanted to know is the thick curd means hung curd…. plz suggest
Hi Harpreet
Yeah, it would work well 🙂
Happy baking!
Thanks. ..
Just saw that u have to put buttermilk also..m can u plz help me wit this …..have to bake this tomorrow for my sis in law
Yeah Harpeet. Just add some thinned down curd if you don’t have buttermilk.
ok thanks
Hi garima..the red velvet cake looks fabulous. Dats my hubbys fav.
soo wanna try it..had a question tho can I make the cheese cream a day
prior i bake the cake
Thanks for visiting Judee
Sure you can 🙂
Happy baking!
Hey garima….do u get readymade cream cheese in the market
Hi Judee
We don’t get is easily where I live, but it is easily available in cities
😀
Yeah.thanks garima ..
I got a pack of Philadelphia creamchese. .
But so scared to whip it…
Hey
Loads of people use Philadelphia and it works great! 😀
But do u even add whip cream or nething else
to it or jus whip the creamcheese ..
Also do u use amul buttermilk? ??
Hi Judee
I have never tried whipping store bought cream cheese.
I make buttermilk at home and haven’t tried Amul buttermilk.
🙂
Hey garima.Cake looks lovely .planning to bake it for our anniversary. Can I make this in microwave convection mode ? Will the temperature n time be the same?
Can I use amul butter or unsalted butter?
Hi Chris
I use Amul for almost all my cakes. Works well 😊
Hey Chris
Sorry but I have never bakes in a Mw oven so have absolutely no idea.
Thanks for dropping by.
pure bliss! I would realy like if you could put up a step by step pic of cream cheese 🙂
Thanks Anshul
Will try and do it next time I make.