Email to Cat      

Red Velvet Cake

Source of Recipe

From "Saveur: The New Classics"


Recipe Introduction

According to legend, red velvet cake was invented in the 1950s at Oscar's in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. However, baker Raven Dennis of New York's Cake Man Raven Confectionary (whose triple-layer recipe we've adapted) claims red velvet cake originated during the Civil War, and that Southern ladies made it to "keep their husbands home."

List of Ingredients

For the cake:
◦  1 tablespoon unsalted butter
◦  3 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting pans
◦  1½ cups sugar
◦  1 teaspoon baking soda
◦  1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
◦  1 teaspoon kosher salt
◦  2 eggs
◦  1½ cups vegetable oil
◦  1 cup buttermilk
◦  2 tablespoons red food coloring
◦  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
◦  1 teaspoon white vinegar

For the frosting:
◦  12 ounces cream cheese, softened
◦  24 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
◦  1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
◦  3 cups confectioners' sugar
◦  1½ cups chopped pecans


Recipe

Make the cake:
Heat oven to 350° F. Grease three 8-inch round cake pans with butter. Dust with 2 tablespoons of the flour and set aside. Sift remaining flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa, and salt into a bowl. Beat eggs, oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar in a bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among pans. Bake cakes, rotating halfway through, until a toothpick inserted into middle of each cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cakes cool for 5 minutes, then invert each onto a plate, then invert again onto a rack. Let cakes cool.

Make the frosting:
Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add sugar and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes.

Put one cake layer on a cake stand; spread one-quarter of the frosting on top. Set another layer on top and repeat frosting. Set remaining layer on top and frost top and sides with remaining frosting. Press pecans into sides of cake.


Makes one 8-inch cake