Red Velvet Cake

This cake is so moist and soft and is a spectacular desert with the lip smacking cream cheese frosting.

It has a tinge of cocoa powder to it which gives it a hint of chocolate flavor which tastes amazing. Its a recipe you would love to bookmark or write down in your recipe book as it is truely an all time favourite desert as well as not difficult to bake at all :D Just follow the procedure accurately and you will make this cake again and again as this cake turns out to be really beautiful and its gorgeous red color makes you love it even more.
Go bake this truely velvety cake and fall in love with it :D

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 2 1/2 cups (250 grams) sifted cake flour
• 2 tablespoons (15 grams) regular or Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) butter , at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence 
• 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

For the cream cheese frosting

• 180 gms cream cheese or cream cheese spread
• 100 gms butter
  *you can get a little extra if you like a more buttery frosting
• 500 gms icing sugar
  *not going to use all of it, just enough to make the icing of piping consistency
• 1 tsp vanilla essence 

Procedure:

For the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C.
2. Sift the flour , cocoa powder , baking powder and set aside.
3. In a bowl with your electric beater, beat the butter until soft then add sugar and cream until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time , eating well after each addition.
5. Add the vanilla essence and beat well.
6. In a measuring cup or in a bowl whisk the buttermilk with the red food coloring. With the beater on low speed add the flour mix and buttermilk alternately in 3 steps. You should begin with flour, then buttermilk then end with flour. Beat well, combine well after each addition.
7. In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter.
8. Divide the cake batter into three 7 inch tins equally and then smooth the tops off with the back of a spoon and bake for 25-30 mins each or until when a toothpick inserted to check comes out clean.
9. After each layer is baked and cooled for about 15 mins, cover every layer with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour or two before icing it.

For the icing:

While the cake is chilling you can beat up the icing in a few minutes...

1. Cream the cream cheese or the cream cheese spread and beat it up until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the butter and cream them well together.
3. Keep adding the icing sugar with 2-3 tablespoon additions at a time until the icing is thick enough to spread or pipe and is sweet enough according to you to taste.
4. Add the vanilla essence and beat the icing well.
5. Now chill the icing for about 15-30 mins in the refrigerator before use.

For layering:

Now to layer up the cake you can use a spatula or just a butter knife and a spoon to spread the icing. To begin with we will spred the cake layer with a thick and even layer of frosting. Place another layer of cake on top of the frosting and continue to frost and stack the three cake layers. Frost the top layer and sides of the cake with thick and even layer of frosting and refrigerate until set and then serve.

Note:
*The cake turns out to be pretty soft so you should definitely chill the cake before icing it as the cake will tear up or you will have crumbs in your frosting. Chilling the cake before icing is a makes the whole process easier in many ways.
*You can add food colors to make the frosting colorful if you don't want it to be white.
*You can pipe the remaining frosting onto the cake to make it look more attractive or decorate with sprinkles even.