Red Velvet Cake | Bake Off Technical Challenge

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BAKE OFF IS BACK!!! And so are the technical challenges! Like last year, I am going to try and bake the Technical Challenges from each week of the show and then share my version of the recipe (and hopefully a video too!) with you! For week 1, which is cake week, Paul Hollywood asked the bakers to make a Red Velvet Cake with a Cream Cheese icing. Mine sadly turned out to be more of a brown velvet cake – but at least it tasted good! Below you can find my interpretation and a recipe with some slight alterations of how I would do this cake next time, but you can find the original recipe here.

Check out the video here:

Red Velvet Cake – What I would do differently next time

Well, as you may see from the pictures or the video this Red Velvet Cake was not one of my greatest successes XD! The cakes were slightly claggy and it was more of a Brown Velvet Cake rather than a Red Velvet Cake…

Sadly, my cakes sunk slightly and there were a few things that didn’t go too well with my cake mix. When adding the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, my mixture curdled and never really recovered. I usually always add some flour while adding the eggs when I use the creaming method (my least favourite method of all!) but for some reason I didn’t this time. And I lived to regret it slightly. The bake not being ideal I will still blame on my new oven as I haven’t quite figured out the settings yet, haha! But the mixture curdling was definitely the worst part of this bake… Also, sadly my cake was more brown than red. On this note, I don’t know what I am doing wrongly. So if anyone has any tips as to how I can do this better in future – please let me know!

The icing on the other hand was delicious! Very easy to make and very yummy, I am sure I will steal this for some of my other own cake recipes in future!

Previous Bake Off Technical Challenges Recipes

I have made a lot of the Bake Off Technical Challenges (this probably being my worst lol) for which I have my (adapted/amended) versions of the recipe on my blog. To check out some of the other recipes, click on one of the links below.

• Mary Berry’s Religieuses
• Mary Berry’s Fraisier Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Hand-raised Chicken, Bacon and Apricot Pies
• Mary Berry’s Bakewell Tart with feathered Icing
• Paul’s Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cakes
• Mary Berry’s Frosted Walnut Layer Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Cottage Loaf
• Mary Berry’s Homemade Jaffa Cakes
• Paul Hollywood’s Wagon Wheel Biscuits
• Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Mini Pork Pies
• Mary Berry’s Viennese Whirls
• Prue’s Vegan Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts (S2UC Special)
• Pizza Star Bread (Junior Bake Off)
• Mary Berry’s Coffee and Walnut Battenberg Cake
• Paul’s Crusty White Cob
• Paul Hollywood’s Rainbow Bagels
• Prue Leith’s Malt Loaf
• Paul’s Jammy Biscuits
• Paul Hollywood’s Olive Ciabatta Bread Sticks with Homemade Tzatziki
• Prue Leith’s Sticky Toffee Puddings with Sesame Tuiles
• Prue Leith’s Prinzregententorte
• Paul Hollywood’s Baklava (22cm)
• Paul’s Caramel Biscuit Bars (Twix)
• Prue Leith’s Vegan Sausage Rolls
• Prue’s Sablé Breton Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Sticky Belgian Buns
• Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
• Prue’s Garibaldi Biscuits with Feathered Chocolate Icing
• Paul Hollywood’s Pain au Raisins
• Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos
• Paul Hollywood’s S’mores
• Prue Leith’s Pistachio Praline Ice Cream Cones
• Vegetable Spring Rolls
• Prue’s Vertical Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Raspberry Tarts
• Paul Hollywood’s Devonshire Splits

Red Velvet Cake | Bake Off Technical Challenge

Recipe

Ingredients:

FOR THE CAKE

• 280g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
• 245g golden caster sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 25g cocoa powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp red gel food-colouring (I use this)
• 6 tbsp hot water
• 270ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp salt
• 335g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

FOR THE CREAM CHEESE ICING

• 300g icing sugar, sifted
• 400g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
• 200g mascarpone, at room temperature
• 250ml double cream, fridge-cold
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

YOU WILL ALSO NEED

• 3x 17cm deep round tins (I used these)
• Electric hand-held or free-standing mixer
• Palette knife
• Piping bag
• Star nozzle

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Lightly grease the baking tins and line the base with baking butter.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and golden caster sugar for 3–5 minutes until pale and creamy. Lightly beat the eggs and start adding them a little at a time, beating well between each addition. Near the end, add a tablespoon or two of the weighed-out flour alongside the egg to prevent the mixture from curdling.
3. Mix together the cocoa powder, vanilla, red food colouring and hot water in a small bowl to form a paste. Then add this to the cake mix and beat until combined.
4. Next, add the salt to the buttermilk and mix. Then gradually add the buttermilk and flour a little at a time, alternating between the two at each addition. Finally, combine the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and carefully beat it into the cake mix until everything is smooth and well combined.
5. Divide the mixture equally between prepared baking tins and level the surface. Bake the cakes on the middle shelf of the oven for 20–25 minutes, until well risen and a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Leave the sponges to cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then carefully turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. While the cakes are baking, you can make the cream cheese icing. Whisk the cream cheese, cream, vanilla extract, icing sugar, mascarpone, and salt together for 1-2 minutes until smooth and the mixture forms stiff peaks. Divide the icing equally between two bowls and chill it in the fridge until needed.
7. To assemble the cake, cut the sponges in half using a serrated knife and level the top. Reserve any offcuts and crumbs for the decoration.
8. Remove the first half of the chilled icing from the plate, and smear a little onto your cake stand/serving platter to make sure the cakes don’t slip. Place the first sponge on the stand, then spread around one fifth of the icing in an even layer over the top. Top with a second sponge and then icing, repeating this until you have 5 layers of icing between 6 sponges.
9. Get the second bowl of icing from the fridge, and use about one third of it to spread a very thin layer of icing around the top and sides of the cake to create a thin coat that seals in all the crumbs. Chill the cake and remaining icing in the fridge until the crumb coat has set.
10. Once set, spoon some of the remaining icing into a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and use the rest to create a smooth layer of icing around the sides and top of the cake. Using a palette knife, spread half of the icing over the outside of the cake to seal and neaten. Clean the palette knife and smooth off any excess icing to create a smooth even icing layer. Then pipe 8 rosettes around the top edge of the cake.
11. Finally, crumble the reserved cake offcuts to make small crumbs and gently press them around the bottom third of the cake and sprinkle some over the piped rosettes on top.
12. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving!