Red Velvet Meringue Cake

Red Velvet Meringue Cake

Red Velvet Cake has a very mild chocolate flavour from the cocoa powder used. This cake is a very smooth and velvety and very soft tender – like from the acid in the buttermilk which is used in this cake. I recommend using 3 red food colouring bottles (75ml) in total for a very red cake. When mixing red food colouring, vinegar and buttermilk in this recipe, it draws out the red in the cocoa and keeps the cake moist, light and fluffy on the inside.

You can make your own Buttermilk by adding 1tbsp vinegar to 1 cup whole milk and leave to sit out for at least 15 minutes to curdle.

Ingredients

487.5g plain flour

450g caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp bread soda

1tsp salt

3 tbsp cocoa powder

9 fluid ozs vegetable oil

1 1/2 butter milk

3 large eggs

3 red food colouring bottle ( 75ml ) in total

1 1/2 tsp vinegar

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method

1. Grease and line three “7 inch” cake tins with parchment paper and se aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
3. Sieve all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
4. Whisk all the wet ingredients in another large bowl together before adding in the dry ingredients and whisking until no flour lumps remain.
5. Weigh out the cake batter using a digital scales into the lined baking tins and bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool completely before decorating.

Filling and Crumb Coat

I used my Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream to fill and crumb coat this cake.

Italian Meringue

2/3 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

3 large egg whites – room temperature

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Combine the sugar and the water in a medium sized pot and bring to the boil until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is thick, about 4-5 minutes.
2. In the meantime, in a stand mixer beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Slowly add the sugar syrup into the egg whites while the mixer continues on high speed. Keep whisking until the bowl is cold about 6 minutes and the icing should be thick and shiny. Slowly mix in the vanilla until well distributed and decorate the cake right away. Use a blow torch to give the finished cake that toasted look.