THE CLASSIC RED VELVET CAKE

Moist and luscious, classic red velvet cake is as delightful to behold as it is to eat! An extremely easy, extremely decadent and extremely RED cake! The preparation time is 25 minutes for cake and 10 minutes for frosting. The cook time is 25-30 minutes, so total time is about an hour. Here are the ingredients:

RED VELVET CAKE:

2-1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

2 cups Sugar

1-1/2 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

2 whole Large Eggs

1-1/2 cups Grapeseed Oil

1 cup Buttermilk

1 tablespoon White Vinegar

1-1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 ounces Red Food Coloring

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING {double batch for crumb coat}:

2 package Cream Cheese Frosting, softened to room temperature

1/2 cup {1 stick} Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature

2 teaspoons of Real Vanilla Extract

8 cups Powdered Sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line, spray and flour two 9 inch cake pans. Set those aside. Lightly beat the eggs with a whisk and then add in the oil, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and food coloring. Whisk together until combined. In the bowl of your mixer, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix on medium until combined, scraping the bottom of the bowl once or twice. Use a measuring cup to divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans. Tap a few times on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester is inserted and comes out clean. Depending on your oven, you might want to rotate the pans for even baking. Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes in the pans before removing them to a wire rack. Once the cake cools it’s time to frost.

FOR THE FROSTING:

Combine the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on high until creamy. For some of my cakes I like to do a “crumb-coat” or a thin frosting to seal in the crumbs. So for this recipe I made a double batch of frosting. First putting a generous amount in between the layers, then a thin coating on the outside. I refrigerated the cake before applying the final frosting layer. This step is totally optional, but if you do decide to crumb coat… add an additional hour to the prep time. You might have a little frosting leftover but I’m sure you can get creative on how to use it up.

Start by cracking two large eggs into a large measuring {makes for easy pouring}, and give them a quick beating.

Add in the buttermilk…

Vanilla…

And *gasp* two 1 ounce bottles of red food coloring. As in uno and dos.

As I poured the second bottle I wondered if anyone has ever stroked-out from a red velvet cake. I mean TWO bottles!?!! That’s just insane!

So this is grape seed oil… and it works just splendid in cakes, and is WAY better for you. Hey-now I have to find some kind of balance with the TWO bottles of red dye! And plus it just makes me feel better.

Stir. And watch out for red droplets that will stain anything and EVERYTHING! Believe me, I speak from experience… goodbye favorite funky-floral kitchen towel, you will be missed. Set that off to the side and start working on the dry ingredients.

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder.

Give it a quick whisk to fluff and get ready for the RED.

Add the RED wet ingredients into the dry and fit your mixer with a whisk attachment.

Turn her on medium and mix until everything is completely blended.

Swipe {taste!}.

And tap the cake pans so any trapped air bubbles may escape. Now just bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes. Depending on your oven you may need to rotate the pans for even baking.

Have the cakes cool for 10 minutes before removing them from pans.

Once removed let them cool completely. Now I made the cake part of this recipe a day in advanced. I wrapped the cakes, individually, and popped them in the fridge until the next day for frosting. But you don’t have to do that. Cream cheese frosting. I love the stuff… but I’m not a huge fan of overly sweet frostings. So I’m using my classic recipe annnd I doubled it. I’ll explain in a few moments…

Now comes the fun part. Place one layer on your cake stand. Dollop a generous amount of frosting and spread it out evenly so some of it starts to fall off the sides of the cake. Place the next layer on top.

Place a larger amount of frosting on top and smooth it out over top and along the sides.

I took my spatula and scraped it so it would trap in any crumbs and then I popped this into the fridge for one hour so the frosting could harden up a bit aka “a crumb coat”.