Red Velvet Cake
READ THIS FIRST: This is certainly a delicious recipe, but I actually favor it without the food dye when I can-it does nothing for the flavor is a bit of a turn-off for me. I recommend using Americolor food dye gel, rather than the more readily available McCormick food dye, as you only need about 1 tsp or so of Americolor dye-rather than 2 tablespoons of the McCormick (crap). I always make this with my cream cheese frosting, as that's the tradition. The original recipe called for shortening, which I never use-the butter and oil work well to deliver an absolutely light and delicious cake!
Ingredients
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- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
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- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
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- 2 tbsp canola oil
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- 2 eggs, large
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- 1 cup buttermilk (full fat if you can manage it)
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- 2 cups all-purpose flour
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- 1 tsp salt
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- 1 tsp baking soda
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- 1 tbsp baker's cocoa
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- 1 tsp vanilla extract
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- 2 oz. (2 bottles) of red food coloring (use Americolor if you can, see my note)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch cake round pans. If you only have one, be sure to THOROUGHLY clean the pan and then re-grease and flour. Your second will stick to the pan if you skip this step!
- Cream together sugar, butter and oil until smooth. Add eggs and beat thoroughly.
- Sift together dry ingredients (sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, and baker’s cocoa) in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk to the butter mixture, mixing together until just mixed-be careful not to overmix!
- Add vanilla and food dye until the batter no longer looks marbled from the red food dye.
- Add half the batter to each pan, and bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Allow cakes to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and allow the cakes to cool completely. Frost cakes once fully cooled.