Recipe from Adams Extract Company
Adapted by Kim Severson
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- 4(3,514)
- Notes
- Read community notes
This is similar to the original recipe that began the red velvet craze. It was developed by the Adams Extract company in Gonzales, Tex. The original recipe, popularized in the 1940s, called for butter flavoring and shortening and is usually iced with boiled milk, or ermine, frosting. —Kim Severson
Featured in: Red Velvet Cake: A Classic, Not a Gimmick
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Ingredients
Yield:One 9-inch cake
- ½cup/115 grams butter, at room temperature, plus 2 tablespoons to prepare pans
- 3tablespoons/20 grams cocoa powder, divided
- 1½cups/300 grams granulated sugar
- 2eggs
- 2teaspoons/10 milliliters vanilla extract
- 2tablespoons/30 milliliters red food coloring
- 1teaspoon/6 grams salt
- 1teaspoon/5 grams baking soda
- 2½cups/320 grams flour, sifted
- 1cup/240 milliliters whole buttermilk
- 1tablespoon/15 milliliters vinegar
- Ermine icing (see recipe), or other fluffy white icing
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Preparation
Step
1
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare three 9-inch cake pans by buttering lightly and sprinkling with 1 tablespoon sifted cocoa powder, tapping pans to coat and discarding extra cocoa. (This recipe can also be made in 2 9-inch cake pans.)
Step
2
Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time and beat vigorously until each is incorporated. Mix in vanilla.
Step
3
In a separate bowl, make a paste of the remaining 2 tablespoons cocoa and the food coloring. Blend into butter mixture.
Step
4
Sift together remaining dry ingredients. Alternating in 2 batches each, add dry ingredients and buttermilk to the butter mixture. In the last batch of buttermilk, mix in the vinegar before adding to the batter. Mix until blended.
Step
5
Divide batter among 3 pans and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a rack completely.
Step
6
To assemble, remove 1 cake from its pan and place flat side down on a serving platter. Drop about 1 cup of icing onto cake and, using a flat spatula, spread evenly over top. Remove the second cake from its pan. Place flat side down on top of first layer. Use remaining frosting to cover top and sides of cake.
Tip
- Measurements for dry ingredients are given by weight for greater accuracy. The equivalent measurements by volume are approximate.
Ratings
4
out of 5
3,514
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Cooking Notes
Nargess
Really want to make this... Recipe says three 9" layers. The photo is 2 layers cake and the assemble instructions is 2 layers cake. Yet step 5 says divide batter into three pans??? Which is it ? 2 or 3 9" pans?
thank you
Katie
Use 1 Tablepoon of vinegar to 1 cup of milk to make buttermilk.
DebbieR
Hi Rachel,
Step 4 was very confusing, but I had used a similar red velvet cake recipe many times previously.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, then you add half of the buttermilk to the butter mixture (continuously beating). Next, add the remainder of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, BUT add the tablespoon of WHITE vinegar to the remaining half cup of buttermilk before adding the remainder of the buttermilk to the mixture. It makes the mixing go more smoothly.
Lex
Hi, I was wondering if you should/could use cake flour?
Emerald T
Loved this recipe! The cake was super soft and moist. Very tasty! I enjoyed it so much I decided to test it out in cupcake form.
This recipe makes about 28 cupcakes. Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes. The cupcakes turned out great!
Tiffaney
Skip the food coloring.... Just use the vinegar you already used, the buttermilk you already used, and make sure to use dutch cocoa, and it turns red by itself....... There is no need for red food coloring, and it wasn't from beets..... It was a chemical reaction from vinegar and buttermilk which shows the red from the dutch cocoa........
Cindy
I'm an experienced baker, but this recipe either has a typo or is absolutely horrible. There is no way to cream 113 grams of butter with 300 grams of sugar, almost three times the amount!!! Most sugar/butter creaming involves near equal amounts of each ingredient. I tried this recipe twice, both times formed a pile of sandlike yellow oily clumped particles.
I'm wondering how so many people have been able to succeed with such strange measurements... anyone have any thoughts?
Nargess
Sorry forgot to also ask..... is the food colouring measurement powder, liquid, gel ?? could someone please give measurements for powder and liquid please?
thank you
Julie
Can cake flour be used instead of regular flour? The recipe isn't specific. Thanks!
MW
I always think to myself--but never ask in a forum--the same question about Red Velvet Cake. I'm hereby halting that practice and asking now: WHY SO MUCH FOOD COLORING? Can't we just skip it?
There, I said it.
Jean
Just a note to new bakers, the butter must be creamed to a fluffy, ivory color (the texture of buttercream) if you want your cake less dense. Alternatively, you can add 2 tsp baking powder (not baking soda) to the dry ingredients. I also added 1/4 cup vegetable oil and 1/4 cup buttermilk to the recipe after seeing many reviews of the cake being too dry. My cake turned out wonderfully.
Nick
I used this with weed butter and it is quite delicious
Jean
Make sure you use no-taste red food coloring. My go-to is red no-taste Wilton Icing Color, it's a lot thicker and cheaper for the amount of ingredients it can dye. Diluting 1 tsp of coloring gel into 2 Tbsp of water.
MotherSquid
YES, absolutely, you can skip the red food coloring. It does nothing for the flavor or texture of the cake. By leaving it out, you will have a pale chocolate cake that will taste the same. Food coloring does have a trace of bitter flavor; this and all red velvet recipes that don't use beets have about 10 times the normal amount of food coloring.
You might want to try a beet based red velvet recipe. It's a great way to sneak vegetables into peoples diets, and very good.
Victoria
If you're using a a baking scale and measuring everything out in grams, the amount of flour listed is incorrect. It says "250 grams" where to have it equal 2 1/2 cups, it should be 320 grams of flour. Thankfully I noticed as I was measuring the flour and adjusted accordingly. They turned out great!
TM
I used 1 Tbs of red food coloring to 2 Tbs of cocoa powder and the cakes I made turned out to be a plain brown. Not sure if the food coloring wasn’t strong enough or if it was too much cocoa powder…
SashaPNW
Similar problems as others - insufficient butter to cream with sugar, batter on the thick side, and nowhere near enough for three pans - was barely enough for two. Opted for less food coloring as too much can upset my stomach, and I was okay with a less vibrant result. Limited rise. Would try a different recipe next time.
Fern
Perhaps y'all can still buy whole buttermilk in NYC, but i haven't seen it in Austin TX in 20-30 years. And no, vinegar or lemon juice added to whole milk do not = whole buttermilk. My dad was still ordering a glass of buttermilk in cafes in the '80s, as he had done all my life; i know what real buttermilk should taste and feel like.
Deborah
Any Red Velvet Cake recipe worth baking needs its red color from beets, not red dye. Glad Grandma let me in on that tip decades ago.
fern
Adams Extract invented the cake & they weren't cooking beets for it.
Chip
This was terrible. Does NOT taste like red velvet. Unless maybe you have zero taste buds. Followed the recipe. Cake was moist and “turned out” minus the flavor. It really didn’t taste like any kind of cake just sweet bread with icing.
Melinda
very good
Deb M
I have baked many red velvet cakes and this recipe was not worth the cost of the ingredients. The cake did not rise, was flat, dense and dry. Not one person finished their slice and honestly, I was embarrassed.
jenny
I just baked the cake for the first time. I used only one tbsp of red food coloring and used two cake pans but otherwise followed the recipe. The cake was amazing. I paired it with the ermine frosting and wow, my whole family loved it! (Including two young boys, aged 4 and 7). The cake was moist, not dry and crumbly, the frosting not too sweet or dense. The subtle hint of chocolate was perfect.
Frenchy
I found the instruction to make a paste with the food coloring and the cocoa to be finicky.Plus my cocoa is always super lumpy. I sifted the cocoa in with the flour and added the food coloring when I added the vanilla. In my opinion much easier and no lumps! The cake was delicious
Katharine
Use red dye and a small pan, I used the opposite and came out with a flat, pink cake.
jmt
This recipe absolutely does not make 3 pans worth of batter. It makes AT MOST one 9x13 inch pan.
Tom
Baked this again yesterday - it is exactly like the same as the one my Mother used to make with the recipe from Akron restaurant in Akron Pennsylvania. Not sure why all the comments on here about it being dry - although you do have to watch it very closely and take it out of the oven the instant a toothpick comes out clean - and it isn’t dry at all - so maybe people are just over baking it?
Alex
I substituted in cake flour for regular flour and used the weight measurement. The cake did come out a bit dry, it was served about 20 h after baking. Otherwise, really delicious classic red velvet flavor and great crumb.
Sheri
Made this twice with great results both times. Modifications: 1 Tbsp red food coloring instead of 2 Tbsp; substituted a quarter cup of cocoa for a quarter cup of flour in the dry ingredients to make it more chocolatey; cooked in two 9 inch pans for 30 min.
Stacy
And it is only enough for one layer,,
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