The lightest, yummiest, moist sponge ever with that gorgeous Red velvet cake taste…
120g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
2-3 teaspoons of vanilla extract
180ml buttermilk
2 tablespoons of red food colouring (Sugarflair Poppy red)
260g plain flour
2 tablespoons of cocoa
2 teaspoons of baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
Frosting
125 g unsalted butter
125g cream cheese
500g icing sugar
¼ lemon juice
Soften the butter a little. Add this into your mixer bowl along with your sugar. Give it a good mix up for 3-4 minutes on a high speed. Remember to scrape down your bowl once or twice during this time.
Add an egg, one at a time into a jug then into the mixer (by adding it into a jug first we can check for egg shells before it goes in the mixer). Scrape down and mix. It may look a little scrambled but don’t worry.
While this is mixing, you can weigh out all your dry ingredients into a separate bowl. This is your flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and cocoa powder. Mix this up to ensure it is even before putting in the mixer.
In a jug, add your wet ingredients. This is your buttermilk, vanilla extract and red colouring. Mix this up.
Add a spoon of flour mixture into the mixer and switch on a low to medium speed. Then a spoon of red wet mixture and mix again. Keep going, alternating and mixing after each one for around 10-20 seconds until it is all combined.
Line your tins with butter and baking paper on the bottom. Add an even amount of batter into each tin. We used 3 x 6 inch round tins. Pop your tins into a preheated oven at 150 degrees, gas mark 2.
These cook for 25 minutes or until a knife or skewer comes out clean.
Leave for 20-30 minutes before taking out of the tins and then cool further on a cooling rack.
To make the frosting, add softened butter and cream cheese into a mixer and mix on high for 6-7 minutes, scraping down a few times.
Add in the icing sugar and mix again for a further 5 minutes. Squeeze in your lemon juice and mix to combine it all together. Ta-da!
To Decorate – Slice the tops off your cakes when cool. Using a disposable piping bag, add in around half of your frosting. Cut about 1 inch off the bottom of your piping bag. There is no need for a nozzle.
Begin piping around the edges of each layer. You’ll need to pipe quite close to the edge. Hold the piping bag over the cake edge and squeeze down. Keep your piping bag still until a ball of frosting comes out. Then stop squeezing and pull up to create peaks. Continue this all around the edges of all layers.
To fill the middle of the peaks, pipe swirls of frosting, making sure you leave the top layer.
Now stack your cakes on top of one another. Finish off the top of the cake with more peeks.
A few hints and tips
Using an oven thermometer will ensure you are at the right temperature to get a better bake.
You can use other colours such as sugarflair red extra or Christmas red. You do need to add a lot of food colour to get the deep red colour. Feel free to add less than stated.
We would recommend using gel colours rather than liquid food colouring. Gels are more concentrated so you’ll get a richer colour.
The frosting can become soft quickly so don’t over handle it or over fill your piping bag.
Finish off the top with grated chocolate or crumble some cake cut offs and sprinkle on.
Now pop the kittle on, make a nice cup of tea, cut off a big slice and enjoy!
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