Quick Red Velvet Cake
(Anne Byrn’s Cake Mix Doctor)
Solid shortening for greasing pans
Flour for dusting pans
1 package German Chocolate Cake Mix with pudding (I always use Devil’s Food cake mix)
1 cup sour cream
½ cup water
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 bottle (1 ounce) red food coloring
3 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting
1. Place rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pans aside.
2. Place the cake mix, sour cream, water, oil, food coloring, eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium for about 2-3 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look well blended. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it our with the rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.
3. Bake the cakes until they spring back when lightly pressed with your finger and just start to pull away from the sides of the pans, 28-30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert each layer onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Allow them to cool completely, 30 minutes or more.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the Cream Cheese Frosting.
5. Place one cake layer, right side up, on a serving platter. Spread top with frosting. Place second layer, right side up, on top of the first layer and frost the top and sides of the cake with clean, smooth strokes.
I'm linking this post to Michael's Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum. Be sure to check out the others posts there.
