Red Velvet Cake

The burgundy-red, mildly chocolate layer cake with buttermilk and a touch of vinegar, stacked four layers high with a fluffy white frosting the 1950s way.

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📖 Myth check: Why Is Red Velvet Cake Red? Cocoa, Beets or Food Coloring →

Why it works the kitchen science

Step by step

1. Step 1

   Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment and grease the parchment.

2. Step 2

   Cream the butter and sugar until combined, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the food coloring, cocoa, salt, baking soda and vinegar.

3. Step 3

   Add the flour and buttermilk alternately in portions, starting and ending with flour, until smooth. The batter will be stiff; spread it into the pans with wet fingers or a spatula.

4. Step 4

   Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops feel set and a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pans, turn out and cool completely, about 1 hour.

5. Step 5

   For the frosting, beat the butter and shortening until fluffy, then the salt, meringue powder and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and milk and beat thoroughly, adding a little more milk or sugar until spreadable.

6. Step 6

   Split each layer in half horizontally to make four layers. Spread frosting on each and stack them, frosting the top but leaving the sides bare so the red layers show.

Tips

• Gel food coloring is stronger than liquid; start with about a quarter as much.
• Cream cheese variation (not counted): beat 8 oz cream cheese with 8 tbsp butter, 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Many modern bakeries use it (Wikipedia).
• Keep the frosting covered at room temperature so it doesn't crust before you use it.
• Store at room temperature for a day or two, King Arthur says, or freeze.

The rules people argue about

What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.

• The Waldorf-Astoria charged a woman $100 for the recipe. Folklore: an urban legend that began in 1945 with no hotel and no red cake, per hoaxes.org; King Arthur calls it likely untrue. Never present it as history.
• The Waldorf-Astoria invented red velvet. Disputed: Wikipedia says the hotel claims to have created it, and that Eaton's department store in Canada also claimed the recipe; hoaxes.org notes reports that the hotel did not serve it when the legend began.
• Adams Extract popularized it. Documented by Wikipedia's Adams Extract article (red color sold with recipe cards); when the cards started is not settled.
• Real red velvet has cream cheese frosting. Disputed: Wikipedia says most modern recipes use cream cheese, while some use ermine (cooked flour) icing; King Arthur uses a buttercream on purpose.
• It was colored with beets. Folklore for the classic cake; Wikipedia mentions beet-red cakes in World War I and the Depression, but the bright red of the modern cake is food coloring.