Red velvet cakes are always a rage irrespective of age. And especially in Kerala, it is raining red velvets in form of pastries, cupcakes, dessert jars, cakes, cookies, and even icecreams after the craze of the Premam movie. I would call it the #Premam effect with so many people craving for the red velvets nowadays here.
The red velvet as its name says is velvety in texture and has a balance of vanilla flavor and the chocolatiness I would say. They are the best when made with the right texture, good cocoa powder, and proper vanilla flavoring. With the combination of a tinge of cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar and the mild soury-sweety cream cheese frosting, it is heavenly to relish it.
This recipe is adapted from Joy of Baking and Fondbites.
Ingredients:
Unsalted Butter - 70 gm
Powdered Sugar or Icing Sugar - 3/4 cup
Egg - 1
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Fresh Thick Curds - 1/2 cup (to make buttermilk)
Liquid Red Food Color - 1 tsp
Red Color Gel - 1 tsp
All-Purpose Flour - 1 cup
Corn Flour - 1/4 cup
Cocoa Powder - 1 tbsp
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - A pinch
Vinegar - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Grease a 6 inch round cake pan with butter or oil and line the bottom with parchment paper.
3. Sift together all-purpose flour, corn flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
4. Add butter in bowl and and beat with a hand mixer for about 1 to 2 minutes until soft, pale, and fluffy.
5. Add the sugar to the butter and beat for 4 to 5 minutes until creamy and fluffy. If you use icing sugar, the sweetness of the cake is milder. If you want your cake to be sweeter, use powdered sugar at this stage. However, you can use half icing sugar and half powdered sugar to have a balance of sweetness - not too sweet or not too mild in sweetness.
6. Break egg and pour contents in a cup and mix the yolk and white together with a spoon and then add this to the butter-sugar mixture and beat for 1 minutes on medium speed until the mixture becomes soft and creamy. A general rule is to beat the batter on medium or low speed only, after the egg is added to the mixture.
7. Add the vanilla extract and beat just until well combined.
8. To make buttermilk, process the thick curds in the small jar of the mixer/blender on low speed for about 10 seconds. It will be a thick but liquid form of buttermilk which works best in baking. To this buttermilk, add the liquid and gel red food colors and mix well. Keep aside.
9. With the mixer on low speed, add half of the sifted flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat just until incorporated. Then, add the buttermilk mixture and beat until well combined. Now, add the remaining half of the flour mixture and beat at low speed until just incorporated. Do not over beat at any step.
10. And now comes the most important part of the procedure to make the cake velvety. Keep your cake pan ready and also check if the oven is almost preheated. When all set, add the baking soda in a bowl and pour the vinegar and stir immediately as it fizzes up. Quickly fold the vinegar mixture in the batter and combine everything together with your spatula.
11. Pour the batter into the greased baking pan immediately and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
12. Once the cake is baked, take it out of the oven and allow it to cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Place a wire rack on top of the cake pan and invert to remove the cake from the pan. Allow to cool the cake (on the wire rack) completely. Once done, cover the cake with a plastic cling wrap and then aluminium foil and freeze for at least an hour or overnight. You can keep in the refrigerator also. This makes layering, filling, and frosting the cake easier.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
Homemade Cream Cheese - 100 gm
Icing Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Heavy Whipping Cream - 1 cup
Method:
1. Add cream cheese, icing sugar, and vanilla extract in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer or an electric mixer for about 2 minutes on medium speed.
2. Add heavy whipping cream and beat rigorously on high speed for 3 to 5 minutes until stiff peaks are formed.
3. Chill this frosting for about 1 hour in the refrigerator and then use for filling and frosting the cake.
Cream cheese frosting is ready to be spread on the cake.
Assembling the Cake:
Remove the cake from the freezer or refrigerator and let it come to room temperature. With a long serrated knife, slice the cake horizontally into 3 layers. Keep each layer aside separately. On a cake board, apply about a teaspoon of cream cheese frosting or softened butter in the center and spread a little so that the cake does not move away from the board. Place the topmost layer of the cake first on the board. Brush off the cake crumbs and have a clean cake layer. Sprinkle sugar syrup all over this cake layer and spread around 1 to 2 tbsp of cream cheese frosting over it evenly until a thick layer is formed. Place the mid layer of the cake over this and repeat the process of sugar syrup and cream cheese frosting layer. Finally, place the bottom most layer of the cake with the bottom side facing up so that a smooth and leveled top is achieved. Apply sugar syrup and then a thin layer of the cream cheese frosting on top and then on the sides evenly to form a crumb coat. Chill in refrigerator for about half an hour. Then, decorate the cake as per your choice and serve chilled. I used a star nozzle to pipe mini rosettes as a border and sugar sprinkles and the cake crumbs in the center.
This cake stays good at room temperature for a day. Store in refrigerator for a longer shelf life.
Look at the perfect layers. Yumm..yumm..
Notes:
I made cream cheese at home and used for the frosting. You can choose to use the store bought ones.
The cream cheese frosting is per my taste. You can add or reduce the cheese cream and heavy whipping cream according to the sourness or the sweetness you like.
Use heavy whipping cream that whips easily to stiff peaks. I used non-dairy whipping cream (Tropolite). Dairy whipping cream with more than 30% fat content can be used for the extra creaminess. If heavy whipping cream that easily forms stiff peaks are not available, then whip the cream separately to peaks and then add to the cream cheese mixture and whip together.
Vinegar and cocoa react together to give a rust color to the cake. If you do not use red food color also, you will still get a reddish tinge to your cake. They will still taste good and velvety. The amount of color you add depends on how deep color or shade of red you would want.
Tomato red, x-mas red, raspberry red, red red, super red or any other red food color can be used to suit the shade of red you need.
If you choose to avoid artificial colors (as I personally prefer), use natural food colors viz., extract of cooked beetroot for the pinkish red color of the cake.
You can replace butter of the cake ingredients with oil either in full or half and half (half of butter and half of oil). I have tried both ways and they are pretty good either ways.
Cream cheese frosting can be made with butter, icing sugar, and cream cheese as cream cheese butter frosting too. For this, beat 100 gm butter to light and creamy, add vanilla extract and cream cheese 50 gm and beat again lightly, then add icing sugar approximately 200 gm and beat until creamy and stiff peaks form.
