Hershey's Red Velvet Cake

Well, it looks like 2012 is almost over!  My first complete calendar year of having this blog.  I haven't shared a lot of recipes this month, but I HAVE cooked lots of good ones.  This is the red velvet cake that I made for our Christmas dessert.  It's not the first red velvet recipe I've tried, but is definitely the best!  It turns out that red velvet is kind of hard to make really good, it always seems to have an odd texture or flavor.  This recipe though is not just good, it's great.  Moist, tender, fluffy, and sweet with a hint of chocolate flavor.  It also stayed fresh for a good 5 days!  If you want to try a red velvet cake recipe, I suggest you try this one!  Normally red velvet cake is topped with cream cheese frosting, my favorite recipe is here.  Sorry there aren't any photos, we loved it so much and devoured the whole thing rather quickly.  I do believe it will become a Christmas tradition here!

This recipe is from the Hershey company and can be found here.  My only changes were to halve the amount of salt because I thought 1 teaspoon sounded like too much and to bake in a pair of round cake pans. 

Hershey's Red Velvet Cake

1 stick butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
2 C flour
1/2 t salt
1/3 C cocoa powder
 1 C buttermilk (or 1 C milk with 1 T vinegar added and allowed to sit 10 minutes)
1 oz bottle red food coloring
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 T white vinegar


Heat oven to 350 and grease 2 round 8 or 9 inch cake pans.  I used nonstick pans and Baker's Joy spray, my cakes came out of the pans perfectly after cooling!

Beat together butter and sugar, then beat in eggs and vanilla extract.  In another bowl, stir together flour, salt, and cocoa powder. In a measuring cup, stir together buttermilk and food coloring.  Beat in a third of the dry ingredients, then a third of the buttermilk mixture, and repeat until both have been completely incorporated into the batter and batter is smooth.  Add baking soda and vinegar, then mix thoroughly.

Evenly divide batter between pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean, about 20 to 30 minutes.  Allow cakes to cool completely before frosting with cream cheese frosting.