Red Velvet Mini Cakes
These Red Velvet mini cakes look really impressive and would make a lovely Valentines Day treat. Made from a sheet cake and then cut into hearts, these cakes are really easy to make. The recipe is a traditional red velvet cake recipe, rather than a chocolate cake with added food colouring. I’ve used vanilla buttercream for the filling and piped detail but you could just as easily use cream cheese frosting.
This is an easy way to make some cakes for a party or afternoon tea. I made a 10 inch square Red Velvet cake and I got 9 heart cakes from it. Once I’d cut the hearts out, I then sliced them in half horizontally and piped some filling in, then piped extra decoration to the top of the cake.
But what about the leftover cake? Have no fear – I made the leftovers into tasty little red velvet cake pops!
Red Velvet Mini Cakes
Equipment
- Greaseproof Paper
- Sharp Knife
- Heart Cookie Cutter 9 cm tall X 8 cm wide or similar
Ingredients
Red Velvet Cake
- 120 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
- 300 grams caster sugar
- 2 medium eggs
- 20 grams cocoa powder
- 1.5 teaspoon red food colouring
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 240 mililitres buttermilk
- 300 grams plain flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 3 teaspoons white wine vinegar
Buttercream
- 250 grams icing sugar
- 125 grams unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- white food colouring optional
Instructions
How to Make Red Velvet Cake
- Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
- Grease and line your cake tin with greaseproof paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and mix well.
- Add the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract and mix well.
- Add half the buttermilk, pouring slowly as the mixer is on.
- Add half the flour and mix well.
- Add the rest of the buttermilk and flour, and mix well.
- Add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar and mix together well.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes. Leave the cake to cool before cutting out the heart shapes and assembling.
How to Make the Buttercream
- Mix together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract. I added white food colouring to make the buttercream whiter but this is totally up to you.
Assembly
- When the cake has cooled, you can cut out your heart shapes. I got 9 hearts from the square cake. Put the leftover cake to one side and use for cake pops (or have it warm with some custard – you're welcome).
- Slice each cake in half horizontally.
- Using a piping bag and a nozzle of your choice, pipe dots of buttercream on top of one of the layers and place the other one on top.
- Using piping nozzles of your choice, pipe some larger dots of buttercream to the top of each heart and then top with some sprinkles. Enjoy!
Because of the colour of these cakes, they make a perfect dessert for Valentines Day. They look great as part of an afternoon tea, or a perfect dessert for two if you’re feeling romantic.
The cakes will keep in an air tight container for up to 5 days. If you use cream cheese frosting, this will need to be kept in the fridge to avoid it spoiling, which can dry out the cakes. I like to use vanilla buttercream (or you could add cream cheese flavour to the buttercream) to avoid this.
You could have the quantities and make fewer heart cakes – a 6 inch square tin should give you 4 heart cakes.
If you wanted to make a round Red Velvet cake, you could use this recipe. Simply divide this into 3 x 7 inch round cake tins and bake for 25 minutes. You could also make 12 Red Velvet cupcakes by halving this recipe.
What is the Actual Flavour of Red Velvet Cake?
Red Velvet cake shouldn’t taste too chocolatey – it has a slight cocoa taste with a tanginess that comes from the buttermilk and white wine vinegar.
How to Make Your Own Buttermilk
If you don’t have any buttermilk, you can still make this recipe if you have milk and lemon juice. You can find out how to make homemade buttermilk.
To make your own buttermilk, you’ll need:
- 240ml Milk – use any kind of milk you have to hand (skimmed, semi skimmed or whole milk).
- 1 tablespoon of Lemon Juice – the lemon juice must be freshly squeezed.
You can double or triple the quantities, depending on what your recipe demands, but just keep these ratios the same (240ml milk to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice).
Add the lemon juice to the milk and allow to sit on the side at room temperature for 15 minutes, and it’s ready! It will look a bit curdled on the top, which is a good thing. This is meant to happen! You can then use this in place of buttermilk in your recipe.
Which is the Best Red Food Colouring for Red Velvet Cookies?
I like to use gel food colouring for red velvet cakes and cookies, and the Rainbow Dust Pro Gel is great. You can also use Sugarflair Extra Red colour as well.
