“Easy, moist red velvet cake recipe full of Southern charm with a secret ingredient! Frosted with Cream Cheese frosting!”
Watch me make this Easy, Moist Red Velvet Cake from start to finish!
There is something so elegant about a red velvet cake. Maybe it’s the name or that beautiful, bold red color. Or maybe it’s the delicate crumb and lightly chocolatey sweet taste mellow with a tad bit of tang from the buttermilk.
Whatever it is, I’m totally present for all this RED VELVET!!!
I’ve been getting a lot of requests for red velvet cake. Being from the south my recipe options were endless. I swear everybody in my family has their way of making red velvet cake and to them, it is the best!!
Hooooowever, I still knew that the perfect red velvet cake was still out there somewhere.
I have been on the search for the best homemade red velvet cake recipe for a while now actually. I wanted one that was easy, super moist, melt-in-your mouth soft with that signature light chocolatey buttermilk red velvet flavor.
I’ve tried a few recipes that were…OK. Nothing that really blew my heels off though. Until I played around with merging three recipes (God I love chemistry when it cooperates) and out came THE MASTERPIECE!!! Or at least we think so in my house!
This red velvet cake recipe is SUPERB!!!! And it passes the stick to the back of the fork test like a champ!
Adding a bit of coffee to the batter isn’t “traditional” for red velvet cakes but it adds another layer of flavor and really hypes up the chocolatey taste to perfection. Not to mention the extra liquid makes this cake do doggone soft so don’t skip it!
Even if you have to run to Mickey D’s or the gas station to get a cup of coffee! I prefer a flavored coffee. When I make this cake for people I always use vanilla biscotti or chocolate flavored coffee. But plain will do just fine too.
Oh and don’t worry, you can’t taste the coffee.
Helpful Red Velvet Cake Supplies
LOOKING FOR RED VELVET CUPCAKES? Check them out here!
The cream cheese frosting that goes with this red velvet cake is….how can I say this…. THE BOMB!!! It’s silky smooth, light, and sweet but not so sweet that it overpowers the cake like some cream cheese frosting tend to do, you know what I’m saying?
I hope that you guys enjoy this red velvet cake as much as I do. Lord knows I didn’t want to make this cake AGAIN this week…but I have to give my readers what they demand…..and now I have all this cake…. that I have to eat all by myself…..*sigh* oh well….life is tough like that sometimes.
Watch me make this Best Red Velvet Cake Recipe from start to finish!
The Recipe
The BEST Red Velvet Cake Recipe. Easy. Moist. Homemade
By Divas Can Cook
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons unsweetened, cocoa powder
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil or canola
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1-2 oz. red food coloring, more or less depending on how deep you want the color
- ½ cup plain hot coffee, prepared (don't skip this ingredient)
- 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 F.
- Generously grease and flour (2) 9-inch round cake pans. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the sugar and vegetable oil.
- Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla
and red food coloring until combined. - Stir in the coffee and white vinegar.
- Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing after each addition, just until combined. (Batter will be thin)
- Pour the batter evenly into each pan.
- Bake in the middle rack for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Do not over bake as the cake will continue to cook as it cools.
- Let pans cool on a cooling rack until the pans are warm to the touch.
- Slide a knife or offset spatula around the inside of the pans to loosen the cake from the pan.
- Gently remove the cakes from the pan and let them finish cooling. (The warm cake will be very delicate)
- Frost the cake with cream cheese frosting when the cakes have cooled completely.
Notes
~TIPS~
Be sure to not overbake! Check the cake at 30 minutes as some ovens run really hot.
Cakes are really moist and you may need to refrigerate them to firm them up before stacking and frosting.
To bake cupcakes, bake for 18-20 minutes, checking at the 18-minute mark.
Hi! Can you post measurements in metric system?
Monique,
I made your Red Velvet Cake for my son this year because he said he hasn’t had a good one since his nana died. She made them every Christmas but did not leave a recipe when she died. The pressure was on! I choose yours because it looked and sounded more like hers than any of the other recipes I looked at, and you looked like you knew what you are doing. I am a great cook but I am not a baker so it was my first time trying to make one. Well let me tell you something, it was wonderful! I actually made 2 cakes and gave my son one for himself. He took it to his office to share and the other law partners almost had a fight over who was getting the last piece! He said everyone just raved about it! Thank you for posting it and explaining EXACTLY how to make it right. You, my dear, are a genius in the kitchen!
I’ve come here from the uk, trying to find the red velvet recipe I use, which is yours in the hope that you have a key lime pie recipe. Anyway, this is my go too red velvet cake. Everybody adores it, so thank you! Though I didn’t write down the coffee bit for some reason and have missed this out on every one I made! So will add it to the next one to see what it’s like. But it’s awesome without the coffee too.
Off to find a lime one now x
Can you use cake flour instead of all purpose flour? I’ve made this recipe of yours once before and it was AMAZING! A friend told me to try “cake flour” instead but I wanted to see if it would mess up the recipe if so?! Thank you for posting such an awesome recipe because it truly is AMAZING!
You’ll need to know the amount of 2 cups of all purpose by weight and then replace it with the same weight of cake flour if you want to swap one out for the other.
Hey, how can i reduce the sugar in it?
Use half the amount of sugar.
Very good recipe
The cake was awesome, but the frosting was runny.
Hi there Monique. I baked 5 of these red velvet cakes yesterday. I received so many complaints on how moist, dense this cake really is. Keep those recipes coming.
This is my second year making this cake for Christmas for my family. It has now become official Christmas cake. It is delicious and moist and easy to make. The only thing I tweaked was using cake flour instead of all-purpose flour, mostly because I had so many boxes and didn’t want them to go bad. Also, I keep reading cake flour makes cake even more moist. All you have to do is add an additional 2 tablespoons of cake flour to each cup of AP flour. Thank you for sharing this Delicious recipe.