At the recent Cake and
Bake Show at Earls Court, I purchased a bottle of Lorann’s red velvet bakery emulsion. I’ve always
liked the look of red velvet cakes but was totally turned off by the amount of
food colouring they require (I’ve seen recipes requiring 50 or even 60ml of
colouring – yuck!)...and I could always taste it in the finished cake. This product claimed to produce the required
colour with only a single tablespoon.
I find my tastes change
over time, so it’s important to revisit things I haven’t liked in the
past. Cream cheese frosting is a good
example – although I’ve always loved cheesecake, oddly, cream cheese frosting
left me cold. I revisited it recently
and enjoyed it...so here it is again! My
eatership (male, except for me) all said – independently of each other – how much
they preferred this frosting to buttercream.
I think it’s because it is less sugary and has a sharp tang. That said, I have the sweetest tooth in the
world and I liked it too!
I think my cakes are red
enough to look like a red velvet but without looking radioactive. The sponge with a light cocoa flavour was
nice and worked well with the creamy, tangy frosting.
The cake will also work made in two thicker layers but there is something so pretty about a three layer cake when cut into slices – maybe it’s the more even distribution of sponge and frosting?
Ingredients
For the sponges:
120g
unsalted butter, at room temperature
300g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
300g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
230g buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Lorann red velvet emulsion – or your preferred red colouring
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
300g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
300g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
230g buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Lorann red velvet emulsion – or your preferred red colouring
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
For the frosting:
180g unsalted
butter, at room temperature
150g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
450g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
150g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
450g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
Method
Preheat
the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C /375°F/Gas mark 5.
Line
three 20cm loose bottomed sandwich tins with baking paper. If you don’t have three you can either bake
in batches, or use a 20cm round springform tin as the third tin.
Beat
together the butter and caster sugar until really smooth and slightly whipped –
it won’t go really light and fluffy because of the ratios involved.
Beat
in the eggs one at a time.
Weigh
out the flour and cocoa and beat a third into the batter.
Beat
in half the buttermilk, followed by a further third of the flour/cocoa.
Repeat
so that all the flour, cocoa and buttermilk is incorporated.
Beat in
the vanilla and red velvet emulsion.
In a
small bowl, mix together the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, which will fizz
rather dramatically, and add to the batter.
Spoon
the batter into the three cake tins – you can weigh them if you want them to be
identical, but I did it by eye.
Bake for
20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the sponges comes out clean. Mine took 23 minutes.
Leave
the cakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack,
remove the paper and leave to cool.
Now
make the frosting: beat together the butter and icing sugar in a large mixing
bowl (I used my kitchenaid).
Beat
in the vanilla extract.
Beat
in the cream cheese, adding it a spoonful at a time, until your frosting is smooth
and well combined.
Use
just under half the frosting to sandwich together the three layers of sponge.
Use
the ‘bigger half’ of the frosting to cover the top and sides.
Refrigerate
until you wish to serve, ideally removing from the fridge about 30 minutes
beforehand.
Bask
in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.
Eat.
22 comments:
What yummy looking bake- and so prettily layered! I've only attempted one or two Red Velvets and they have turned out to be more Pink Velvets because I wasn't terribly generous with the food colouring, but this product works a treat!
Beautiful cake!
My mom made a truly yummy carrot cake and frosted it with shocking amounts of cream cheese frosting. Well, shocking to strangers, the perfect amount to me. :)
That looks great - did using the specialist red food colour fix the problem of tasting food colour in the final cake? I agree about the three layer thing - I always think they look so gorgeous and the ratio of cake to filling is good because you can always get a bite of frosting with a bite of cake. Double layer cakes tend to have thicker cake so you don't always get frosting with the cake - tragedy!
Hi Caroline
No icky food dye taste at all - just lightly cocoa'd sponge...as it should be!
Happy baking
Mmmmmn! I can taste it's gorgeousness from here. Though I made some of your stout and mascarpone cakes on Friday and they are lushiousness on a plate!
Wow! it looks fabulous! I hadn't even heard of cake emulsion, it looks very interesting I will have to have a google and get some for myself.
Thanks for sharing.
Stephanie
I love the frosting - it looks so professional. I make my red velvet cake without chocolate - an old Marha recipe. Perhaps I should try this one?
Looks delicious! Another way to use less colouring is to ue gel food colouring, which gives a stronger flavour and you only need a few drops. It's available in mot supermarkets now, too.
Lovely combination of red sponges with white icing. i use red food paste as this requires only 1/2 tea spoon for an intense colouring x
Beautiful as always! I always struggle with the food colouring aspect too. Definitely prettier with the three layers :)
What lovely and delicious Cake, I loved!
I have never heard of red velvet emulsion before, but it's a great idea! Nothing worse than the tinny taste of food colouring. Yum! Glad you gave cream cheese frosting another chance.
I was excited to see the cake cut into. I never fancied the cake myself because of the same horror of how much food colouring was in it, so this emulsion is perfect! Beautiful cake CC xx
i'd not heard of red velvet emulsion - your triple layer cake looks very statuesque. and i imagine it tastes wonderful.
Lovely layer cake with beautiful color 'RED'! Looks so moist & tempting with those yummy frosting! YUM! :)
This emulsion is so good to know about, I have made red velvet cake on so many occasions and it just seemed so toxic putting so much colour in! Not to mention the time when I baked red velvet with a natural food colouring - the cakes were orange and tasted of beetroot! This looks really fab :)x
Impressive cake! I must admit the amount of food colouring in red velvet cake always worries me so this colour paste sounds perfect. Great colour in your photographs too. When I made red velvet cupcakes last year I found the red really difficult to photograph.
This does look lovely. I'm glad the colouring worked out. I love cream cheese frosting - I think the tang definitely helps counteract too much sweetness. I find it tends to pipe brilliantly, too, so sometimes use 1/3 cream cheese to 2/3 butter in a frosting rather than just butter. Anyways, looks gorgeous and I would love to try a slice! :)
Your red velvet looks spectacular and perfectly red too. I'm so tempted to make one as I do like the texture, but I'm not a fan of artificial colours, so haven't made it yet. It looks really good against the white icing.
I love red velvet cakes and yours looks so wonderful! Absolutely stunning :-)
I love red velvet cakes and yours looks so wonderful! Absolutely stunning :-)
Love the sound of that red velvet emulsion...I'm also rather loathe to add that much food colouring but this sounds like it does the trick and your red velvet looks delicious! :-)
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