Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

For the past couple of months life has been racing fast and I’ve been trying hard to catch up. When I still made time for everything else, there was practically no time I could make for the things I loved doing – baking, photography and blogging! It is hard to believe, but the last cake I baked was precisely two months ago for his birthday, a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, and I never got around to posting it here.

Some days back while skipping through my FB news feed, I came across a quote which said, “Ignoring your passion is slow suicide. Never ignore what your heart pumps for. Mould your career around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your career” and that got me thinking. Although it wasn’t just work that was taking my time, I knew, if I tried harder I could still do all what I love. So, a couple of days later, here I am writing my next blog post :P

Talking about Red Velvet Cake, this was my third try – everyday ingredients, simple process and you end up with an extraordinary cake; the mix and match of flavours that go into making this are as dramatic as its vibrant colour itself. No doubt I am in love with its tangy sweet taste, hint of cocoa, dense yet airy texture and above all, I feel cream cheese was invented just to be paired with this. And, cream cheese frosting happens to be his ultimate favourite; normally, fearing extra calorie intake, he doesn’t fancy icings/frostings on cakes, but this is one thing that will have him jump up and down (literally) at the very thought of it.

Some Handy Baking Hacks

When you bake a lot you end up looking for substitutes, because it is not necessary that you have all ingredients on hand all the time. And did you know, some of the widely used baking ingredients like cake flour, confectioner’s sugar etc can be homemade too. Well, of late I have started doing that a lot.

Homemade Cake Flour – For every one cup of all-purpose flour, replace 2 tablespoon of flour with cornstarch. Sieve it a couple times so that the flours mix well.

Homemade Confectioner’s Sugar – For every one cup, take about ½ cup of granulated sugar. Put the granulated sugar along with ½ tsp of cornstarch in a blender or food processor and powder it until very fine. You could sieve it later to make it super fine and fluffy.

Lesson Learnt: Cornstarch is a wonder ingredient and a must have in your pantry! :P

A couple of things before you proceed

All ingredients must be in room temperature, be it eggs, butter or buttermilk.

Using cake flour renders a lighter texture to the cake; you could still use all-purpose flour if you absolutely must.

I do not know if there is a red velvet cake without red colour; but I think you could still skip the colour and end up with an equally tasty cake. But then that would be Velvet cake!  

YOU NEED:  

This recipe makes 2, 9 inch cakes. You could half the recipe, if you want only a layer.

CAKE

Cake flour, 1 ½ cup (175 grams) 

Baking soda, 1 tsp 

Unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tbsp 

Salted butter, 1/4 cup (60g) softened to room temperature (if using unsalted butter, add a ping of salt when mixing the dry ingredients) 

Granulated sugar, ¾ -1 cup (about 200g) 

Olive oil, ½ cup (120 ml), you could use any vegetable oil or canola oil 

Large eggs, 2, yolk and white separated (if small, use 3) 

Vanilla extract, 1 tbsp 

Distilled white vinegar, ½ tsp (you could use apple cider vinegar too) 

Liquid red food colouring 

Buttermilk, ½ cup (120 ml)

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (all ingredients must be in room temperature)

8 ounces (220g) cream cheese (use full fat for best results) 

Salted butter, 1/4cup (60g) softened (you could use unsalted too) 

Confectioners' sugar, 1-2 cups (taste at 1 cup and if you need it sweeter add more) 

Cream, 1 tbsp (or milk) 

Vanilla extract, 1 tsp  

HOW TO:  

The process may sound and look lengthy, but it is very easy. So, do not get overwhelmed seeing the length of the post!

Baking:

Sieve together cake flour, baking soda and cocoa powder (and salt, if using). Keep aside.

In a large mixing bowl using a hand mixer, cream together butter and sugar fairly well, for about 2 minutes on high speed. Pour oil and beat for another 2 minutes on high; scrape down the sides as needed and combine well. It is okay if the mix looks not well combined at this stage.

Now add the egg yolks and vanilla, and on medium-high speed beat well to combine. Now add the vinegar and the food colour; you may need about 1-1/2 tablespoon of colour to get the exact red we are looking for. In medium speed beat to ensure everything is well combined.

Now add the dry ingredients batch by batch, beginning and ending with dry ingredients and alternating with butter milk after each addition; mix just enough to ensure everything is incorporated and do not over-mix.

In a smaller mixing bowl using an egg beater, beat the egg whites vigorously until thick and foamy. Now pour this over the cake batter and carefully fold in to get a silky and kind of sticky batter.

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Prepare two 9 inch baking pans. Pour the batter equally into both pans (taking care you leave enough space for the batter to rise) and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Frosting:

When the cake is baking, prepare the cream cheese frosting.

In a large mixing bowl using electric mixer, beat cream cheese until soft and creamy, for about 30 seconds. Now add the butter and beat in medium speed until smooth, for about 1 to 1 ½ minutes. Add sugar (start with 1 cup and increase as per taste) along with cream, and beat to get a silky smooth icing mix. Finally add vanilla, mix in well. If using unsalted butter, you could add a pinch of salt to balance the flavours.

Assembling:

Once the cakes are cooled completely, use a serrated knife to slice off a thin layer from the top of the cake. You could use this sliced off part for decorating the cake later.

Now, place one layer of cake on your cake stand (or the make-do stand). Take enough frosting mix to evenly cover the top of the layer; since you are working with red crumbs and white frosting mix, a little practice won’t hurt. To spread the frosting mix evenly on the surface, always move your pallet knife in 8-like motion and shave away towards the sides.

Once you have an even and thick coating on the first layer, place the second later on top of it. Give a thin coating of frosting on top and sides of the cake; we are not looking for an even neat coating here, but a crumb coating, where you seal in the crumbs completely and the result is just a clean white surface. Once done, refrigerate the cake for 15-20 min. You could leave out this step, but then, if you are looking for a neat finish then this will help. Later, take out the cake and apply the rest of the frosting mix evenly on top and sides.

For decoration, make crumbs from the top part we sliced off earlier. Now let your imagination go wild; you could either give it a nice crumb décor just along the circumference on the top or give an uneven work around the sides or bottom.

That’s it, you've waited long enough; now just go ahead slice this beauty and enjoy! :P