Chelsea

Chelsea Trusted 135 Years SPOT

Red Velvet Cake

By Chelsea Sugar
Red Velvet Cake
16 servings
  • 75 reviews

  • Difficulty Easy
  • Prep time 20 mins
  • Cooking time 25 mins
  • Serves
    16
Ingredients

    1 1/2 cups Chelsea White Sugar (338g)
    125g Tararua Butter, softened
    2 large eggs
    1 cup Meadow Fresh Buttermilk (250ml)
    1 cup vegetable oil (250ml)
    2 Tbsp red food colouring
    1/2 Tbsp white vinegar
    2 tsp vanilla extract
    2 1/2 cups Edmonds Standard Grade Flour (375g)
    3 Tbsp Edmonds Fielder's Cornflour
    2 Tbsp cocoa powder
    1 tsp Edmonds Baking Soda
    1/4 tsp salt

    ICING
    1 cup Meadow Fresh Original Cream Cheese, at room temperature (250g)
    125g Tararua Butter, softened
    3 cups Chelsea Icing Sugar (450g) + extra to decorate (optional)

Method

    Preheat oven to 180°C conventional / 160°C fan bake. Grease 2 x 20cm round cake tins and line the bases with baking paper.

    Using an electric beater or stand mixer, beat Chelsea White Sugar and butter together until well combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

    Add buttermilk, oil, food colouring, vinegar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

    Sift flour, cornflour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt over the top. Beat until just combined.

    Divide mixture evenly between prepared tins. Bake for 25-30 minutes (in the middle of the oven, on the same shelf), until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

    Leave cakes to cool in tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

    ICING
    Beat cream cheese and butter together until really smooth and pale (about 3 minutes). Add Chelsea Icing Sugar and beat until light and creamy. You want a spreadable consistency - if your icing is too runny, add a little more icing sugar; if too thick, add a little lemon juice or water.

    Spread the top of one of the cooled cakes with icing. Add the second cake layer on top. Spread icing on top and all around the outside of the cake.

    Optional: Beat a little more Chelsea Icing Sugar into any remaining icing, to make a stiff pipeable consistency. Pipe icing decorations on top of the cake.

    Allow icing to set before slicing cake and serving.


    NOTE: Recipe tested, improved and updated September 2022.

Tips

    Cake will keep well for 5 days. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

If you like this recipe you may love these

Reviews

Average Rating
375
(75 reviews)


Yum!

Rather use a box instead of this recipe

how big is this cake ex: Diameter cm

I read reviews before making this cake, the trick is to have all your dry ingredients measured, sifted & ready to add as soon as you've mixed all the wet ingredients in, this way it won't affect the activation. The image itself is misleading, the layers do not come out that big. Mine did only take 30mins to cook not sure why others were taking 1hr. Haven't tasted yet as am freezing ready to ice for a special Occasion in 2 weeks time.

This is my go to cake. If you read the recipe, you will see that the cooking time is for two cakes, not one, so of course the timing will be different.

Very nice cake, but goes hard after a day or two and also takes long to bake !

While baking this cake we experienced the recipe being quite interesting with the measurements of butter, food colour and the cocoa powder. This is quite the recipe for disaster not red velvet.

Followed the recipe and did everything right, and yet when I took the cake out to cool the middle was completely liquid. 338 grams of melted butter is in hindsight too much butter to be cooked for only 30 minutes.

Hey Chelsea, how about you test this recipe or remove it.
Based on the reviews which I had to hunt for (maybe move them up to under the recipe, and having made the cake myself, it’s not good.
I come to your website for quality tried and true recipes. I am dubious about trying other recipes on this site. What a waste of ingredients, time and money. Very disappointed.

1 Tsp of cocoa doesn’t not give this cake any chocolate flavour
Bake 25-30min I’m already on the 45min and it is still not cooked maybe recipe should say to use two cake tins.

i tried with i table spoon it and it was Delicious you should try that

YOOO I SO RECOMMEND THIS

This cake turned out sooo bad, cooking time is not correct and cake is dry with no flavour.

When baking this recipe I used a 12inch pan for layers which for some reason made it to take about 40-45 minutes baking the cake layers which wasn't the best but to no fault of Chelsea sugar, so other than that it was well done and tasted amazing.

It did not work, I did everything as the recipe said, and it didn't cook.

hi, Is it ok to use caster sugar???

Needed an hour to cook, can you please change cook time from 25m to 1hour? But delicious cake!

Takes a while to cook as mentioned in other reviews. It was my first time making a red velvet cake and I was pretty proud, super moist and wasn't too difficult.

Nice cake and topping, next time though I am going to substitute some of the flour with more cocoa, as our family prefer a slightly more chocolaty taste.

Delicious cake - needs at least an hour cooking time though.

image description

I have managed to get this recipe to work, with just a few adjustments, especially for those who couldn't get it to rise.

1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
300g melted butter

When working with the ingredients it is best to mix the sugar and the wet ingredients SEPERATE, the buttermilk and the vinegar is what gets the baking soda to activate. Mixing it all together affects the activation. You will want to work SUPER quick but work it in bit by bit.

I also cooked mine at 160 on a fan bake, it took just over 1.5 hours but it's turned out alright thus far. Hope this helps someone

just loved it best cake ever

nice

NOTES FOR CAKE
- takes an hour to cook
- use butter not oil
- for buttermilk I used 1 cup of milk and 1TBSP of lemon juice

just made this for my boyfriends birthday cake. great cake only problem is the time takes an hour other than that I really enjoyed it. very moist and a good cake
8 July 2021 I made it so yeah, hope you enjoy x

AMAZING

Everyone loved the cake! Im not much of a baker but it was easy to follow and YES - it does need to stay in the oven much longer!! As an amo baker and first timer making red velvet, this recipe and method is a 10/10 for me :)

Kids liked this but super dense, didn't rise much, required twice as much cooking time as recommended. The crumb did not look like the picture above. Seemed the proportions were wrong, too much liquid.

Was a great recipe and I definitely recommend trying it out!

It definitely needs much longer than 25mins to bake... more like an hour and 25 minutes!

I love this it actually helps me learn more about recipe and measurements and what u need, how much it serves other people

I love red velvet and this is my favorite recipe. This is how I fell in love with red velvet

Should have read the reviews first!! Followed the recipe to the 'T', however just like everyone else it has been an hour and it's still not cooked! Making this for my daughters birthday cake, getting ready to make a standby different cake just in case this one fails. Good thing I'm not in a rush to be anywhere with it.
Awesome cake. I cooked it in a ring tin, didn't have any yogurt so just used plain milk and oil instead of butter as recipe says either, cooked in about 40 minutes I will make this cake again in fact it will be a birthday cake for all my grand children.

I should have read the reviews first!! Followed the recipe to the 'T', however just like everyone else its been an hour and its still not cooked! Making this for my daughters birthday cake, getting ready to make a standby different cake just in case this one fails. Good thing I'm not in a rush to be anywhere with it.

Awesome cake. I cooked it in a ring tin, didn't have any yogurt so just used plain milk and oil instead of butter as recipe says either, cooked in about 40 minutes I will make this cake again in fact it will be a birthday cake for all my grand children.

It was amazing.

It took over an hour to cook, did everything by the book.

It is good. Takes ages to cook.

Big mistake. Traditionally make birthday cake for grandson. Thirteen this year and cake is in the oven still while I contemplate a bought one from the supermarket. Chelsea get negative rating from me.

It took way too long to cook and the middle was raw. I had to foil it tight for 10 mins for the entire to turn out right and straight in the freezer for another 45mins to cool so that it was moist. Let's see how it turns out

The cake was ok, like everyone else's comments it took twice as long to cook so I think that's a misprint. I always thought velvet cake was just a coloured chocolate cake but a tsp of cocoa wasn't enough. I haven't tried it yet and just hope it's not dry as some comments have mentioned. It's for the husbands birthday and a crowd of 35 people.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed with the dryness and heaviness of this cake. I would not make again

The timing is waaaayyy off

Not a great red velvet cake. Way too much oil. Took much longer to cook and is quite tasteless. I wouldn't recommend

Our Family loved this, and yes the time is a bit short but worth the wait :)

Loved it

My 13 yr old son made this red velvet cake. The recipe was very easy to follow & it turned out moist and delicious! The cooking time was a little longer but it was worth it! Thank you!

Cooking time way off, maybe the time in the recipe is for 2 cakes. Chelsea, maybe you need to test cakes before you publish them. First time I have tried a recipe and very reluctant to try again

centre never cooked

Currently cooking 8inch cake at 180 fan bake. It’s just been over an hour, still quite raw in the middle. Looks great and did rise very nicely, but obviously wasn’t going to take 30 minutes

Loved it.

image description

Fluffy, light and moist. Delicious and easy to make. I made cupcakes out of this recipe as well and it made 30. Great for parties and celebrations. Great for all ages!

Easy cake to make. Instructions made very clear to follow. Nice moist and soft texture. Yummy. Used melted butter not oil.

Cooking time incorrect, had to reduce the temp and cook for a total of 45 minutes.

Cakes been in the oven for an hour and is still not cooked! I'm hopping wen it's finally cooked it tastes nice!

Awesome recipe worked well. May have been my oven but it took about an hour to cook instead of the time suggested. End result was a moist tasty and delicious cake.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that the recipe took a lot longer, mine was closer to 1 hr. Haven't tasted it yet so here's hoping for a great tasting cake.

So good

Delicious and easy to make.

It takes longer than half an hour make the recipe have a longer time.

delicious yummy scrumptious perfection in cake form

This is a terrible recipe, the cooking time needs to be longer as there is so much wet ingredients in this recipe, you will be sure to find a nicer tasting red velvet cake recipe elsewhere

This recipe is crap. Not only is the cooking time wrong but the amount of oil is ridiculously over the top. I used the recipe in twice and the middle remaind gooy while the top slowly burned. Waste of my time and effort won’t be using it again.

image description

Easy to make and very easy to eat. Yum yum yum.

Agree. Please adjust cooking time. At least 45 mins plus using fan bake.

This is my go to, fool proof red velvet!! Always gives me an amazingly moist cake!!

I love it

I am going to bake this cake for my birthday. I am turning 8.

I found that this recipe had the wrong cook time as it took 45ish mins maybe slightly longer to cook with a fan assisted oven and I think that it should have less food colouring maybe tsp instead of tbsp and 1 tbsp of cocoa instead of 1 tsp of cocoa powder.

This recipe was weird; took ages to cook, did not taste good. Was oily-not good at all.

Used this recipe today for partners bday, I don't like red velvet....now i do. Holy crapsicle this recipe was fantastic! Thank you :)

Great recipie but needs to be cooked for longer, 35-40 mins!

Sadly disappointed with this cake.
Made it for my daughter's birthday and it was tasteless and felt like a brick.

Total disaster! Cooking time wrong, probably be ok time if put in two tins and temp lowered as way to hot. Hard on out side. Not impressed at all.

Think I'll use Butter instead of Oil next time I used the amount required but maybe it was too much I could taste it in the in the cake not nice.

I found cooking time was longer (and that's with fan assisted oven) 40 mins.

Load More

Products used in this recipe

Sign in