Raspberry red velvet cake

Made this rich, decadent beauty from ‘Cool Layer Cakes’ by Ceri Olofson and adapted the recipe a little, as V and I aren’t fans of marzipan. Turned out beautiful and moist, and is lasting us all week 🙂 Serves 20+ (slice the cake thinly, as it is extremely rich and portions do not need to be big to fill you up).

Ingredients:

Cake batter

• 450g caster sugar
• 180 unsalted butter, softened
• 3 large eggs (4 medium eggs)
• 360ml buttermilk
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• red food gel
• 60g cocoa powder
• 450g plain flour
• 1 1/2 baking soda
• 4 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Icing & filling

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 400g icing sugar, sifted (original recipe called for 500g, but I found this icing almost overly-sweet)
• 250g full-fat cream cheese (with the excess liquid drained off)
• 2 cans of tinned raspberries

Decoration

• 100g seedless raspberry jam (or 2-3 heaped tbsp)
• 2 punnets raspberries

 

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 160C fan.
2. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
3. Gradually add the eggs.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the buttermilk, vanilla and red food colouring until all combined and a bright, intense colour. (You can add more colouring later if the batter doesn’t look bright enough once incorporated.)
5. Sieve together the cocoa powder and flour in another bowl.
6. Add half of the red buttermilk mixture to the batter, and combine. Next, add half of the dry ingredients, then repeat, alternating mixtures, until everything is incorporated.
7. Add the baking soda and vinegar. Now is the time to add more food colouring if desired (I found I had to add a lot more than I thought, even with the gel; I used about 1/3-1/2 of the pot, but remember that this is a large cake). I did this by dissolving the gel in a dribble of boiling water until liquid-y (this incorporates more evenly into the cake) then added it to the batter until I got the colour I wanted.
8. Divide the mixture into 3 identical tins, and bake for 30-35 minutes/until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to completely cool before decorating.
9. To make the icing, beat the butter on its own until pale and fluffy.
10. Add the icing sugar in manageable batches (so icing sugar does not explode everywhere), incorporating completely before adding the next batch.
11. Add the cream cheese, and beat until smooth, fully incorporated, and lump-free. Chill until needed, and take out 20 minutes prior to use.
12. To assemble the cake, level any uneven layers if needed, then build it up: one layer of cake, one layer of icing, then one can of drained tinned raspberries, all evenly spread. Repeat, then top with the final cake layer. Crumb-coat the entire thing, and chill until firm.
13. Use the remaining icing in a final layer over the entire cake, then arrange the fresh raspberries on top.
14. Heat the seedless raspberry jam on the hob until just melted (you can add a drop of boiling water along the way to help it loosen up if too jelly-like), and once cooled, but still runny, brush over the top of the raspberries for a final glaze.