Guys, 7 years ago, Instagram had just started, I didn’t speak English and I was unaware of the vast existence of bakeries and different cakes on offer. I spent almost every waking moment hopping between different bakeries across London, testing every type of cake available! I soon discovered red velvet, and hadn’t realised that it was simply cacao and vanilla sponge with red colouring 🙂 Sounds easy, right?
I made this red velvet cake as a request for a birthday cake (my favourite of cakes) for one of my friend’s birthday. I wanted the decoration to be simple but cute, so I just added these little heart shaped sugars and used a velvet red edible spray to do the ombré (it is a little bit messy to use, but the effect is great!)
This recipe uses buttermilk (which I always recommend for delicious moist sponges, when you only have icing to cover with, and no additional filling) and if you can’t find it at the shop, just buy whole milk and lemon to make it yourself. Simply pour the milk in a bowl and add 2 tbs of lemon and leave it to curdle for 15 min.
Quantity: 7 inches cake
Utensils: Electric stand mixer, 2*7 inches tins, grease proof paper, turn table, pallet knife, cake scraper, red edible spray, cake board.
Difficulty:
Ingredients
Red velvet sponge
- 250g plain flour
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- 2 tbsp of cacao powder (unsweetened)
- 2 tsp of vanilla paste
- 1 tsp of salt
- 450g of golden caster sugar
- 200ml of vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
- 200ml of buttermilk
- 100ml of cold brewed coffee
- 4 tbsp of red food colouring
Cream cheese icing
- 100g of unsalted butter at room temperature
- 250g of cream cheese
- 400g of icing sugar
Method
Pre heat the oven at 175 degrees.
Make the sponge: In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the sugar and the oil and mix for 1min. Add the eggs, buttermilk, food colouring, coffee and the vanilla paste. Reserve. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and the cacao and mix well. Finally, add the flour mix to the egg mix and mix until combined.
Bake the sponge: Grease the cake tins with butter and cover the bottom with a circle of grease proof paper. Distribute the mix into the tins, and bake for 25-30min. When baked, take out and leave to cool on a rack.
Make the icing: put the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat it for 2min. Then add half of the sugar and beat again. Add then the cream cheese and the rest of the butter and mix well.
Assemble the cake: cut the cakes in two so you have 4 layers. Put the first layer on a cake board and cover with a layer of icing. Do the same for all of the layers. Finish with covering the sides and use the cake scraper and the turn table to make it neat. Spray with the edible spray for the ombré.
Then sing happy birthday and eat 🙂
Pictures by Jennifer Moyes
