Australian Moist Red Velvet Cake Recipe

Most of the people ask is red velvet cake just chocolate cake with red colouring!!! hah hahaha basically yes, but there is more depth to that answer, yes cocoa powder is used as a flavouring and red colouring is used to get the colour, but there are slight tangy notes coming through the cake that’s because of the buttermilk used. Also, the chocolate taste is quite mild. and there is a reason why its called velvet because the texture is quite velvety. If you put a chocolate cake and red velvet cake in front and try to taste the difference blindfolded, you can definitely differentiate both cakes.

This cake has originated in the United States. It’s very popular in the states and Europe, but in Australia, although you get it in many bakeries and supermarkets its not that popular like in other countries, so many recipes out on the internet will have ingredients that are not available in Australia, like cake flour, well that’s a lie, you can find cake flour, but it’s not very popular here in Australia. But the recipe I am about to give has all ingredients that you can find in Austalia and I am sure you can find them in all other countries as well.

Cocoa powder is used as a flavouring and red colouring is used to get the colour, but there are slight tangy notes coming through the cake, also its frosted with cream cheese, which gives a mixture of sweet, tangy, slightly chocolaty and creamy flavour.

The most common frosting used on red velvet cake is cream cheese frosting. This is going to be a tricky part of the recipe depending from country to country due to the varieties of cream cheese available in each country, the texture of the frosting will vary a lot. I will point out below which cream cheese needs to be used to get the proper frosting texture.

Cake flour: Now many countries have cake flour widely available not in Australia, it is very important to use cake flour for this cake, as that’s how you will get a perfectly moist velvety smooth crumb texture. Cake flour basically has more gluten in it which helps cakes to be moist and soft. If you cannot find cake flour substitute All-purpose flour, take out 2 tbsp of flour from it and add 2 tbsp cornflour into it to make cake flour, I have also given this calculation below in the recipe.

Buttermilk; Buttermilk like my moist chocolate cake recipe makes the cake moist, so its essential to use buttermilk. I don’t recommend to make buttermilk from scratch for this particular recipe, I urge you all to buy buttermilk. First, because I don’t believe the same texture is achieved when made with buttermilk that is made from scratch. Secondly, many of you had problems to make buttermilk properly for my chocolate cake recipe, which resulted in a dense cake, so as buttermilk is a crucial part of this recipe, if you all can buy it when making this recipe, it will come out perfect.

Red colouring: Now this is a crucial part of the recipe too. you may be wondering well it’s just red colouring, believe me, I had to remake this cake as the colouring was not strong enough which resulted in the cake being brown and not red. Make sure to use a good quality colouring as some red colouring is not intense enough so how much you put into it will not make it red.

I had to make this cake 3 times to get the perfect cake, and one time the cake turned brown and not red, that’s because I used a bad quality red colouring and the quantity I put in was clearly not sufficient, therefore use a good food colouring as you will only need about 2-3 tbsp to get the perfect colour. Remember due to the cocoa powder, the cake will turn brown, but it is with the red colouring that you will get it back to a red colour as the cake is meant to be. You will be adding heaps of more colouring than you would add to a normal cake.

The brand and type of cream cheese used is very essential in this recipe, I recommend Philadelphia, actually, that’s the only cream cheese I use for any of my cream cheese-based desserts or cakes. Only use blocked cream cheese, if you use the spreadable, believe me, it will turn runny and cannot use to decorate the cake. If this happens, instantly put it in the fridge and leave it for 30 minutes, then add a bit more icing sugar but it’s going to be so hard to work with the icing once it is too runny.

First time I made the cream cheese frosting it came out stiff and hard to pipe or spread, when this happens, make sure to mix the frosting for about 3 minutes to get it to soften and add a bit of milk to loosen it up. This usually happens if the cream cheese was not soft enough or the butter was not soft enough. But if it is too softened it will be runny. See!!! it’s a tricky frosting, but don’t worry, my step by step guide will help you.