Making My First Red Velvet Cake

Good day, Hive Family! I trust we’re all doing great, and thank God it’s Friday. Its ny first post here Hive account@hivefood and am excited.

Guess what, fam? I baked my very first red velvet cake, and it turned out absolutely sumptuous!

I actually learned the basics of cake making and decoration over a decade ago, and since then, I’ve been the “house baker.” Most of my cakes have been for family birthdays, always using the same simple recipe I picked up years ago.

But this time, for my youngest brother’s birthday, I wanted to try something different. I decided to take on the challenge of making the famous red velvet cake, as well as a chocolate cake. I’ve been watching numerous tutorials lately, and I've realised that the ingredients are mostly the same—it’s just the recipe and method that make the difference.

I chose a recipe that uses butter since that’s what I had at home (though I’d like to try the vegetable oil version next time). Altogether, I baked about 1.5kg of cake and divided it into three equal parts: one for red velvet, one for chocolate, and one for plain cake.

Here’s the recipe I used for the red velvet:

500g flour

250g sugar

500g margarine

500g eggs

2 tablespoons baking powder

Dried fruits (soaked in dry gin for 3 days as a preservative)

1 sachet cocoa powder

3 tablespoons red velvet colour

1 cup hot water

Flavouring

1 cup milk (with a few drops of lime juice since I didn’t have vinegar)

Method:

1. I first creamed the margarine and sugar until fluffy.

1. Whisked the eggs and added them to the creamed mixture.

1. Sprinkled in the dried fruits soaked in gin.

1. In a separate bowl, I sifted the flour, added baking powder, cocoa powder, flavouring, the red colour, a pinch of salt, and mixed well.

1. I added the dry mix into the wet mixture and stirred gently.

1. Finally, I added the milk and the cup of hot water (this part scared me the most, since I’d only seen it in videos, but it turned out great!).

1. After mixing everything to a smooth consistency, I poured the batter into greased baking pans and baked.

The result? A soft, moist red velvet cake that I absolutely loved!

For the chocolate cake, I used almost the same recipe but replaced the red velvet colour with cocoa powder and chocolate chips. The outcome was just as excellent.

Even the plain cake came out better this time because, for the first time, I added a cup of hot water to the recipe. The texture was fantastic.

I was so proud of myself, it felt like a big win. Join me in my next post, where I’ll share how I iced the cakes using sugar paste.

Thanks for stopping by! ❤️