Red velvet cake… with a twist? I wanted to attempt making the iconic cake for the first time, after eating it on a few occasions. Sadly, bright red cake with white cream cheese frosting isn’t a realistic, good idea anymore if you’re short on red food colouring and bake for someone with a white food phobia. The twists were a must. I found a recipe and adjusted it slightly – the final result exceeded my expectations!

I’ll probably make the cake red next time, for a nicer visual effect, but my brown velvet cake was delicious regardless. I only had about 2 tablespoons of red colouring left, so added some extra cocoa powder to make the cake a bit darker. The twist to the frosting came from the fact that I was baking for someone who generally dislikes white coloured food. I had some blue food colouring and decided that baby blue would go well with edible dried rose petals which I wanted to use as decoration. Strawberry flavouring wasn’t necessary, but I wanted to mask the cream cheese as much as possible, not just in colour but also in flavour. Omit the colouring and flavouring and you’ll have traditional cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients:

Cake, Ø24cm tin:

• 120g butter, at room temperature
• 300g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 50ml liquid red food colouring (can be omitted, the cake will turn out brown)
• 2 heaping teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder (add another teaspoon if omitting red food colouring)
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 350g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250ml buttermilk

Frosting:

• 200g cream cheese
• 120g butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon liquid strawberry flavouring (optional)
• 1 teaspoon liquid blue food colouring (optional)

Also, optional:

• dried rose petals for decoration

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Place butter and sugar in a bowl and cream them using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one by one, whilst still mixing.

In a separate bowl, mix oil, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, vinegar and red food colouring. Stir with a spatula until combined well.

Add the oil mixture to the sugary butter.

Sift together flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl. Add them to the wet ingredients along with the buttermilk. Mix well with a spatula until smooth.

Grease a ø24cm cake pan with butter and lightly dust with dark cocoa powder. Transfer the batter into the pan. Bake for about 45 minutes (check the cake with a skewer – insert it into the centre of the cake and make sure it comes out dry).

Let the cake cool completely before making the frosting.

Beat together butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, strawberry flavouring and blue food colouring, using an electric mixer. Add icing sugar and mix until combined well.

Cut the cake in half, to create two layers. Spread a 3-4 tablespoons of the frosting on the bottom layer. Cover it with the top half and spread the rest of the frosting on the outside of the cake. Decorate with dried rose petals.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes to let the frosting set. Store in the fridge. Enjoy!

• Sweet