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Red Velvet Cake is the one dessert in our house that gets requested by name, three tall layers of tender, cocoa kissed crumb in that unmistakable deep red, stacked with a silky mascarpone frosting that is nowhere near as sweet as the bakery version. Maddie asked for it for her birthday two years running, and Lizzie has decided it is her cake too, so I have made it more times than I can count. If you loved our red velvet cheesecake cake, this is the pure, classic version it grew out of.
It bakes in one pan, gets sliced into three layers after it cools, and the whipped egg whites in the batter keep every bite light instead of dense.
Red Velvet Cake Quick Look
- 🕒 Prep Time: 30 minutes
- 🌡️ Cook Time: 1 hour
- ⏳ Total Time: About 4 hours 30 minutes (includes cooling and chilling)
- 🍽️ Serving: 12 slices
- ⚡ Calories: 640kcal
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Tender buttermilk crumb with a whisper of cocoa, tangy mascarpone cream, not too sweet
- ✋ Difficulty: Easy to moderate, a step up from our banana bundt cake but nothing tricky
Quick Answer
Beat 1/2 cup cubed butter with 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, then beat in 4 egg yolks, 1 cup vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1 teaspoon red food coloring. Stir in 1 cup buttermilk and the sifted dry ingredients, 2 3/4 cups flour, 4 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon each baking soda and baking powder, and 1/3 teaspoon salt. Fold in 4 stiffly whipped egg whites, pour into a 7 inch pan, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 50 to 60 minutes, foil on for the first 20. Cool, trim, slice into 3 layers, and frost with mascarpone beaten with butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla bean paste.
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Why This Recipe Works
Click to see the technique science
- Whipped egg whites lighten the crumb. Most red velvet recipes dump whole eggs in and hope for the best. Separating them and folding in stiff whites gives the batter lift without extra leavening, so the cake stays tall and tender instead of heavy.
- Butter and oil together do two jobs. Butter brings the flavor, oil brings the moisture. A cake made with only butter dries out by day two. A cake made with only oil tastes flat. Using both is why this one stays soft for days.
- Buttermilk and lemon juice wake up the cocoa. That gentle tang is the signature of a real red velvet. The acid also reacts with the baking soda for a finer, softer crumb, and it keeps the red color bright instead of muddy.
- Brown sugar instead of white. The molasses in brown sugar adds a little caramel depth and extra moisture that plain white sugar never delivers. It is a small swap that makes a noticeably richer cake.
- One tall cake, sliced into layers. Baking a single tall cake and cutting it into three gives you perfectly even layers with no doming to trim off each one. Foil over the pan for the first 20 minutes keeps the top from browning before the middle catches up.
- Mascarpone frosting is the grown up finish. Cream cheese frosting is the classic, but mascarpone is smoother, less tangy, and half as sweet. It lets the cake be the star, and it pipes into rosettes that hold their shape in the fridge.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It stays moist for four full days in the fridge, so it is the rare layer cake you can bake on Wednesday for a Saturday party and it will still taste fresh.
- The frosting takes five minutes and only four ingredients, and it is far less sweet than the American buttercream most bakery cakes are buried under.
- That striking red and white stripe when you cut into it makes it the showpiece for birthdays, Valentines Day, Christmas, and any table that needs a little drama.
Key Ingredients
Nothing exotic here, but a few of these ingredients pull more weight than you would guess.
- All Purpose Flour, Cocoa Powder, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Salt: The dry team. Only 4 tablespoons of cocoa, which is exactly right, red velvet should whisper chocolate, not shout it. Sift them together so the cocoa has no lumps.
- Brown Sugar and Butter: Creamed together first. Brown sugar gives the crumb a deeper flavor and more moisture than white sugar, and room temperature butter cubes cream faster and smoother.
- Vegetable Oil and Eggs: The oil locks in moisture for days. The eggs get separated, yolks into the batter for richness, whites whipped stiff and folded in at the end for lift.
- Buttermilk, Lemon Juice, and Vanilla: Buttermilk and lemon juice give red velvet its signature tang and tenderize the crumb. If you are out of buttermilk, stir a tablespoon of lemon juice into a cup of regular milk and let it sit 10 minutes.
- Red Food Coloring: One teaspoon of gel coloring gives that deep, even red. Liquid coloring works too, but you may need a little more for the same shade.
- Mascarpone, Butter, Powdered Sugar, and Vanilla Bean Paste: The frosting. Cold mascarpone, soft butter, and just enough powdered sugar to sweeten it. The vanilla bean paste adds those pretty flecks, the same way it does in our easy tiramisu.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Variations and Substitutions
This cake is a great base, so make it yours.
- Go classic with cream cheese frosting. Swap the mascarpone for 16 ounces of cream cheese and bump the powdered sugar to 2 cups, or pipe on our chocolate cream cheese frosting for a red velvet and chocolate combination.
- Make it two 8 inch layers. Divide the batter between two 8 inch pans and bake 30 to 35 minutes. You lose the tall three layer look but gain a faster bake.
- Turn it into cupcakes. This batter makes about 24 cupcakes, baked 18 to 20 minutes. Pipe the mascarpone frosting high like we do on our almond raspberry cupcakes.
- Add a chocolate ganache drip. Warm 1/2 cup heavy cream, pour it over 4 ounces chopped dark chocolate, stir smooth, cool slightly, and drip it over the chilled frosted cake.
- Skip the food coloring. You get a lovely brown velvet cake with the exact same tender crumb and tang. It is what I make when we are out of gel color, and nobody complains.
- Use the trimmings. Crumble the trimmed tops and bottoms into cake truffles, or press them onto the sides of the cake for the crumb coated look in the photos.
How to Make Red Velvet Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease and line a 7 inch round cake pan. Beat the cubed butter with the brown sugar until combined, then add the egg yolks, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat 1 to 2 minutes. Add the red food coloring and beat until even.
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Add the buttermilk and the sifted dry ingredients to the red batter and stir until completely combined with no dry streaks.
- In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed for 4 to 5 minutes until stiff peaks form. Gently fold them into the batter with a spatula until no white streaks remain.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Cover loosely with foil for the first 20 minutes, then uncover and bake until a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs, 50 to 60 minutes total. Rest 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out and cool completely.
- Trim the darker top and bottom crusts off the cooled cake and slice it into 3 even layers with a long serrated knife. Save the trimmings for crumbs.
- Beat the butter and mascarpone 1 to 2 minutes, add the vanilla bean paste and powdered sugar, and beat until smooth. Spread frosting over each layer, stack, then frost the top and sides and decorate with the reserved crumbs. Chill 2 to 3 hours before slicing.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Separate the eggs cold, whip the whites at room temperature. Cold eggs separate cleanly without the yolk breaking, but whites whip higher once they lose the chill. Separate them first thing and let the whites sit while you cream the butter.
- Do not skip the foil. A tall 7 inch cake needs a long bake, and without foil for the first 20 minutes the top sets and browns before the center is done. The foil is the difference between a level cake and a domed, dark one.
- Bake it in two batches if you want it perfect. Splitting the batter two thirds and one third and baking them one after the other gives an evenly baked cake with no dry top and no gummy middle. It takes longer but it is worth it for a special occasion.
- Chill the cake before you slice it. A cold cake cuts into clean, even layers with almost no crumbs tearing off. Wrap the cooled cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight if you have the time.
- Keep the mascarpone cold and do not overbeat. Mascarpone goes from silky to grainy fast if it is warm or whipped too long, a lesson I learned the hard way on my first tiramisu cheesecake. Beat only until smooth and stop.
- Do a crumb coat. Spread a thin layer of frosting over the whole cake, chill 20 minutes, then frost again. It traps the red crumbs so the outside stays clean white.
- Frost with an offset spatula, then a bench scraper. The spatula gets the frosting on, the scraper held against the side while you turn the plate gives those clean horizontal ridges, the same trick we use on our spice layer cake.
Serving Ideas and Suggestions
This is a birthday and holiday cake in our house, so it usually shares the table with more than one dessert. A tray of red velvet sandwich cookies keeps the red theme going for the kids, and a pan of red velvet cookies and cream brownies covers anyone who wants something fudgier.
For a Christmas dessert table, it looks beautiful next to a eggnog cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. For a summer birthday, a strawberry shortcake cheesecake cake next to it turns the whole table pink and red.
A slice with a cold glass of milk is how Maddie and Lizzie eat it, and I will not argue. If you want to dress it up for company, a spoonful of creme anglaise on the plate or a few fresh raspberries on top is all it needs. When the last slice is gone, our chocolate poke cake and peanut butter cake are the next two cakes the girls ask for.
Red Velvet Cake FAQs
Yes. The baked, unfrosted cake keeps wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or frozen for up to a month. The frosted cake keeps covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days and honestly slices better on day two. Let slices sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving so the frosting softens.
Usually not enough coloring, or the wrong kind. Gel food coloring is much more concentrated than liquid, so 1 teaspoon of gel gives a deep red while 1 teaspoon of liquid may only tint the batter. Using natural cocoa rather than Dutch process also helps, since Dutch process cocoa is darker and will mute the red.
Absolutely, and it is the more traditional choice. Beat 16 ounces of softened cream cheese with 1/2 cup butter, 2 cups powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cream cheese frosting is sweeter and tangier, mascarpone is smoother and lets the cake flavor come through more.
Use two 8 inch round pans and bake 30 to 35 minutes, or one 9 inch pan and bake 40 to 45 minutes. Both give you a shorter cake, so slice into 2 layers instead of 3. A 9×13 pan also works for a single layer sheet cake, baked about 35 minutes.
The oven was probably too hot or the foil was skipped. A tall cake bakes from the outside in, and if the top sets before the middle rises, it splits. Cover the pan with foil for the first 20 minutes, check your oven temperature with a thermometer, and do not open the door until at least 40 minutes in.
You can add the 4 whole eggs with the yolks and skip whipping. The cake will still be delicious, just a touch denser and about an inch shorter. If you want that light crumb without the extra bowl, a batch of sour cream coffee cake is the shortcut cake we lean on.
Want more show stopping cakes for the next celebration? Our coffee walnut cake, lemon poppy seed cake, and tiramisu cake balls are where I would start, and a batch of fluffy buttercream frosting never hurts to have on hand.
Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 tablespoons cocoa powder unsweetened
- 1/3 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup butter cut into cubes, room temperature
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 4 eggs separated, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon red food coloring gel or liquid
- 1 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 2 cups mascarpone cold, for the frosting
- 2/3 cup butter room temperature, for the frosting
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar for the frosting
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste for the frosting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease and line a 7 inch round cake pan. Cut the butter into cubes and beat it with the brown sugar until combined.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the all purpose flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cocoa powder.
- Add the egg yolks, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and vanilla to the butter and sugar. Beat for 1 to 2 minutes until combined.
- Add the red food coloring and beat until the color is even and no lumps remain.
- Add the buttermilk and the sifted dry ingredients and stir until completely combined with no dry streaks.
- In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed for 4 to 5 minutes until stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the batter until no white streaks remain.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Cover loosely with foil for the first 20 minutes so the top does not brown too fast, then uncover and bake until a wooden skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 50 to 60 minutes total. For an even bake, divide the batter into two batches, two thirds and one third, and bake them one after the other.
- Rest the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out and cool completely. Trim the darker top and bottom crusts and slice the cake into 3 even layers. Save the trimmings for crumbs.
- Beat the butter and mascarpone on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes until combined. Add the vanilla bean paste and powdered sugar and beat 1 to 2 minutes more until smooth.
- Spread frosting over each layer and stack. Cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting and press the reserved cake crumbs over the top or sides to decorate.
- Refrigerate the cake for 2 to 3 hours before slicing so the frosting sets and the layers hold together cleanly.
Notes
- Bake in one 7 inch pan for a tall cake about 4 inches high, or split the batter between two 8 inch pans and reduce the bake time to about 30 to 35 minutes.
- The baked cake can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight before slicing. Cold cake is much easier to trim into even layers.
- Keep the mascarpone cold and do not overbeat the frosting or it can turn grainy. Stop as soon as it is smooth.
- Store the frosted cake covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Let slices sit out for 15 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
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