Nadiya Hussain’s Red Velvet Cake
With luscious cream cheese frosting and soft red velvet sponge, this classic cake recipe from Nadiya Hussain's Fast Flavours is perfect for a birthday or celebration.
From the book
Nadiya’s Fast Flavours
Clever, flavour-focussed recipes from Nadiya Hussain
From midweek meals to celebration centrepieces
Including plenty of Nadiya's signature bakes
Introduction
This is my boy’s all-time favourite cake. With its two layers of bold, red, cocoa-flavoured sponge and hints of almond and vanilla, sandwiched and covered with rich vanilla cream cheese frosting and simply but beautifully decorated, you can see why it’s his favourite.
Ingredients
| For the cake: | |
|---|---|
| 250g | unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the tins |
| 300g | caster sugar |
| 3 | medium eggs |
| 50g | cocoa powder |
| 1 tsp | red gel food colouring |
| 1 tsp | vanilla extract |
| 1 tsp | almond extract |
| 300g | plain flour, sifted |
| 1 tsp | salt |
| 240ml | buttermilk |
| 1 tbsp | white vinegar |
| 1 tsp | bicarbonate of soda |
| For the cream cheese icing: | |
| 100g | unsalted butter, softened |
| 600g | icing sugar, sifted |
| 250g | full-fat cream cheese |
| 1 tsp | vanilla bean extract |
Essential kit
You will need: 2 x 20cm cake tins.
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan 140°C. Grease and line 2 x 20cm cake tins.
Start by putting the butter and sugar into a bowl and whisking till light and fluffy. Add the eggs in one by one till combined. Add the cocoa, food colouring, vanilla and almond extracts and mix till combined.
Add half the flour and the salt and mix through, then add half the buttermilk and mix through. Do the same again and add the rest of the flour and then the rest of the buttermilk.
When you have a smooth batter, mix the vinegar with the bicarb, then add to the batter. Mix into a smooth batter and divide between the two tins, level off and bake for 40 minutes.
Take out and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then on a cooling rack.
Make the icing by whipping together the butter and icing sugar. Add the cream cheese and vanilla and mix in.
As soon as the cakes are cooled, level off the tops and save the crumbs. Sandwich the cake layers with the icing and cover the top and sides. Crumble up the scraps and cover the base of the sides.
