Just take a look around the internet and you’ll find tons of recipes for red velvet cake. Most of those recipes call for buttermilk, which is fine and I love it in cakes, but I’m even more of a fan of sour cream in cakes. I just think it’s one of the best ways to add moisture to your cakes. So, I set out to make a sour cream red velvet cake and I really think I hit the jackpot with this one.
Ok, since we talked about buttermilk earlier and since we’re not using it in this recipe, I have a story and a question for you. I think this might be a southern thing, but I’m not really sure. One of my dad’s favorite snacks was cornbread and buttermilk. Now, if you get grossed out by buttermilk, just scroll on past this part of the post. Just warning you now.
My dad would take cornbread, put it into the bottom of a tall glass and then pour buttermilk over it. He’d take a spoon, break up the cornbread and then just eat it all mixed up in the buttercream. He’d then leave the glass on the coffee table, apparently just to gross everyone out. The buttermilk would make these lines on the glass and it was just…ewww.
Here’s my question…is this just a southern thing? Did anyone else’s parents do this? Or maybe do you do it? Just curious. I’m not sure whether that or my dad’s sardine snacks were worse. Ok, my point is we’re not using buttermilk in this cake. Yes, I know that was a weird segue, but here we are.
This sour cream red velvet cake is so moist and so good. It’s got just a hint of cocoa powder in it. That, along with the acidity of a touch of vinegar and the sour cream, really gives it that red velvet flavor.
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I used ‘no-taste’ red gel coloring. There are different brands out there, but I just used the one I had available near me, which was the Wilton brand. You can grab it here: No Taste Red Gel coloring.
I like using the gel food coloring because it’s more concentrated. You’re not having to add so much of it and it’s not going to add any unnecessary liquid to your cake batter.
I only used about a tablespoon of the gel coloring, which was slightly over half the container. You can always add more if you want a really bright red color, but I tend to go a little lighter on the food coloring, just because I’m sure it’s not exceedingly good for your body. (Um, like sugar, butter and flour are?) Anyway, it was my effort to at least be a little health conscious.
One of my favorite things about red velvet cake is the cream cheese buttercream that’s slathered all over it. You’ll want to try my recipe here: Cream Cheese Buttercream Recipe
Ok, now to the recipe. I’ve even got a video just below the recipe. Plus keep scrolling if you’d like to download the cute recipe card for this cake.
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup unsalted butter (room temp)
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tbsp no taste red gel food coloring (can use a bit more for a darker red color)
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Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Grease and flour two 8" round cake pans or three 6" pans.
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In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Whisk together and set aside.
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In another bowl, mix together the sour cream, milk, vinegar and vanilla. Whisk well and set aside.
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Now in your mixing bowl, mix the butter until creamy.
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Add the sugar and whip until fluffy. (About a couple minutes.)
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Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each one, but only just until combined.
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Alternately add in the dry and liquid ingredients. Start with 1/3 of the dry mixture, mix just until combined. Add in 1/2 the liquid mixture, mix until combined, then another third of the dry mixture and mix only until combined. Add in the last 1/2 of the liquid mixture, mix, then add in the last third of the dry mixture and mix just until combined. Be careful not to over mix.
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Add in the red food coloring. If you want your cake to be a deep red, add a little more red food coloring. Mix until the food coloring is well incorporated.
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Bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for about 50 minutes. Start checking at 45 minutes. The middle should spring back when touched.
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Cover with cream cheese buttercream. (Grab that recipe on the blog.)
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Don’t forget to grab the recipe for the Cream Cheese Buttercream!
And here’s the video to see how it’s done:
I hope you try this one out and if you do, let me know how you like it!
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Hi Kara, I’m making a small wedding cake due next week. 9″ & 3″…3. each. Naked. Never done this… I’m at 9000 ft so I’ll be using a red velvet high altitude recipe. I’m testing tomorrow using your frosting. I’m wondering how early should I set up the cake? It’s a cool venue but I’m still afraid of melt…yikes! Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you kindly, Lorrie
Hi Lorrie, First I have a question…are you going with cream cheese buttercream, or the straight vanilla buttercream? If you’re using cream cheese, it’s a softer icing, so it doesn’t always do real well on stacked cakes. You could add in an extra cup of powdered sugar to it if you wanted. Also, since cream cheese icing needs to be kept refrigerated, I wouldn’t set the cake up more than about an hour before the cake is cut. First reason is you don’t want anyone to get sick from the cream cheese sitting out too long and the second is that you don’t want the icing to get too soft on you and cause problems with the cake stability.
If you’re using just vanilla (american) buttercream and not the meringue type buttercream, you can leave it out of the fridge and set it up even a couple hours before they will cut it and it should be fine. As long as the cake isn’t in the direct sunlight and it’s not hot in the room. The Vanilla American Buttercream is much more stable than cream cheese buttercream. If you’re wanting a cream cheese taste to it, but don’t want to deal with keeping it cool and waiting til just before they event to set it up, you could always experiment with make the regular vanilla buttercream and then adding in some cream cheese flavoring. LorAnn oils has one. I haven’t tried it, but that might be the best of both worlds. Hopes this helps!
Thank you Kara for such a quick response. The bride is set on cream cheese frosting. I will take your advice and add an extra cup of powdered sugar. It’s in the mid 30’s here in the evening (This is a night wedding ) so I’ve advised them to set the cake up in a cool area and away from heaters. I didn’t know about the cream cheese flavoring so I will definitely be trying that out before I take on another cake such as this one. Any other advice is so appreciated.
Also, I love following you on your website and on Pinterest. You are so nice to share all of your knowledge and advice!! Thank you so much!!
Oh you’re so welcome! A couple of other things I thought of…just make sure and keep that cake chilled as long as possible before setting up, but make sure it’s got a little time to get closer to temperature before it’s cut (which it probably will be fine). Also, since it’s a naked cake, make sure when you put it in the fridge that it’s covered well…not only in a box, but you might add some saran wrap loosely over the cake layers as well inside the box. Naked cakes can dry out easily, so hopefully that’ll help with that.
In Texas, if you’ve got a home bakery, it’s illegal to sell perishable items, so I could always use that as an excuse when someone wanted cream cheese buttercream. 😉
Well, let me know how it all goes!
I love buttermilk and cornbread; and yes, my children react just like you!
Love it! 😂😂
Hi Kara, just an update…
My cake was amazing !! I ended up using your cream cheese buttercream recipe + 5 tablespoons of shortening. It was beautiful. The venue was nice and cool, I stacked my cakes…success ! Everyone loved it. The taste and texture were delicious on top of a completely from scratch red velvet. The frosting had a nice crust and thankfully was perfect.
Thank you for the advice. You gave me the confidence I needed for my first stacked cake. You’re the best!! Lorrie
Hey Lorrie…That’s wonderful! I’m so glad it all worked out and was a hit! Glad my tip about the shortening helped too 😉
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Love your blog! Thanks for sharing your great recipes and tips. I love sour cream in cakes too! I need a white cake …..suppose I could use this recipe, eliminating the food color and substitute flour for the cocoa (only 3 Tbsp). Seems like a real classic recipe. Thanks for your thoughts!
Oh thanks Brenda! Yes, you could essentially make those adjustments. I actually have a vanilla bean cake that this red velvet cake is based off of. The mixing method is a little different on that one…you’ll use the reverse creaming method to get a much softer texture. (I do explain how to do that in the post.) It’s really my favorite vanilla cake ever. It’s not truly ‘white’ as it has a little bit of a yellow tint to it from the eggs, but it’s close. I am actually working on a ‘white’ cake as we speak…one that’s really moist and a little more white than my vanilla cake recipe. I hope to have that one on the blog soon, but for now you might want to check out the vanilla cake recipe. It’s my favorite and people seem to really like it. Here’s the link: https://iscreamforbuttercream.com/favorite-vanilla-bean-cake/ Hope you like it! 🙂
Hi! Just wondering if this recipe is also good for cupcakes? Thanks!!
Hi Dawn, I haven’t tried these as cupcakes, but this recipe is very similar to some of my other cake recipes that I HAVE made into cupcakes…so long story short, these should work just fine as cupcakes 🙂 I would fill the cupcake liners just slightly over half full and I would actually bake at 350 degrees instead of 325. Bake for about 20 – 30 minutes. I’d start checking at 20 minutes, but you’ll probably need to keep them in for a couple minutes more than that. Hope this helps 🙂
Can I use cake flour for this recipe? I tried your vanilla cake and OMG it was the best vanilla cake I ever made .. thanks for sharing your recipe ☺️
Hi Rita! Oh I’m so glad you liked the vanilla cake! 🙂 And yes you can certainly use cake flour for this cake as well. To substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour, just use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour for every cup of all-purpose flour. Hope this helps! 🙂
OMG! I am laughing so hard because my dad ate the cornbread buttermilk mixture as a late night snack. He also thought sardines on saltines with yellow mustard was the perfect afternoon snack (especially if on a boat). It definitely has to be a southern thing! Love your blog and videos!
LOL!! Oh it sure makes me feel better that at least I wasn’t the only one that had to look at that gross cornbread concoction and smell those sardines! Totally a southern dad thing. Lol!
Red Velvet for birthdays is a tradition in our family. I have always felt the recipe was dry, so I went searching. I made your recipe today and it is what I will use from now on! It was light, moist and delicious!! I am Red Velvet traditionalist, so I still make the original Ermine(boiled milk) frosting. But your recipe is most definitely the best I’ve made.
Oh yay! That’s wonderful…I’m so glad you liked it! And thanks for letting me know 🙂 By the way, I LOVE the ermine frosting as well 😉
Hi Kara, unfortunately we can’t get our hands on sour cream in this part of the world. So I was hoping I can use my homemade buttermilk like I do your vanilla cake? Do you think it’ll work out ,also you used all purpose flour here rather than cake flour..so I hope alternating for buttermilk won’t affect the moist nature.
Hi there, yes I think substituting with buttermilk will be just fine. The difference in the type of flour shouldn’t have any affect on that. Hope this helps and let me know how it goes!
Would the cake be alright if I put like half a cup of cocoa powder? I like the red velvet chocolate flavor to be a big stronger and the red to be a little more darker.
I think that would be okay. I’m not sure how big an effect it would have on the moistness of the cake though. If you’re concerned about that, I’d add a couple tablespoons more of the milk. Let me know how it goes!
Can I do the reverse creaming method?
Yes that should be fine. You sound like you know what you’re doing, so you probably don’t need my next tips, but just make sure the butter is slightly cooler than room temp. Mix the dry stuff in a bowl, then the liquid stuff in another bowl. Add the butter in chunks to the dry ingredients until it’s crumbly, then 1/2 the liquid, mix, then the rest of the liquid and mix. You could mix in the food coloring with the liquid mixture or you could mix it in at the very end. If you do that, just try not to beat the batter too long. Hope this helps!