Red Velvet Drip Cake! - Jane's Patisserie (2024)

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A deliciously festive red velvet drip cake with four layers of sponge, delicious frosting, ganache, and more!

This beauty of a recipe is designed to give you all the festive vibes with its white and red theme, delicious flavour, and beautiful decoration. I am obsessed with all things red velvet, and after so many requests for this beauty it was finally time to post it!!

Red Velvet Recipes

There is just something about red velvet themed bakes that really captures everyone and makes everyone bake them. I have quite a few on my blog now and in my books, such as my red velvet NYC cookies, my red velvet cake, and of course my red velvet brownies.

I just love the flavour it brings, as it is quite different. There are hints of vanilla, hints of chocolate, and its own unique flavour all tied into one. And this bake?! Well, it’s a showstopping combined version of so many red velvet bakes and I love it.

Cake

For this cake, I wanted to do a four-layer sponge because it always looks the best. My classic red velvet cake recipe is only two layers if you want to make a simpler two-layer version, and it also has cream cheese frosting on it.

I know the quantities may seem a little intense, but honestly, it’s just because there needs to be four layers. I found it easier to do four layers because I tend to bake these cakes into two sponges, and then split them each into two again.

These are the cake tins I use for sponges like this. I find if you use deeper cake tins, you get better results. If you try and do a deep cake in a tin that is too shallow, it tends to peak in the middle a lot more.

I also tend to bake cakes like this at a lower temperature, for longer. This also creates a flatter top and prevents the peak in the middle. However, as it is a red velvet cake, having a little bit of cake to chop off so you have crumbs for decoration is no bad thing.

Food Colouring

When I say the type of food colouring used in a red velvet bake is VERY IMPORTANT, I am not joking. I am not trying to sell a lie or anything of the sort – a lot of colours are just not good enough to make the cake actually red.

I use this extra strong red food colouring all of the time, as it really is the best. Unfortunately, sorry to break it to you, supermarket own colours do not work. They are too watery, not strong enough, and cannot fight against the natural brown colours of the rest of the ingredients.

Enhancement of the colour also comes from the raising agents, as they fuel the colouring, even more, to increase it and make it super bright.

Frosting

For the frosting, I decided to do cream cheese in the middle of the cake, as you have to have cream cheese frosting with your red velvet bakes. I have a post all about cream cheese frosting on my blog as it is notoriously tricky, but honestly?! Mine is pretty amazing.

For the outside though, I stuck to a basic vanilla buttercream. This is partly because I wanted something that could easily smooth and be dripped onto. I know it seems a bit boujee to make two different frostings, but if you don’t fancy it, you can just use all vanilla buttercream to be safe.

It’s so important when making both the vanilla buttercream and the cream cheese frosting to use block unsalted butter, as any form of spread will not work. You want the firmness of the butter to create the best results.

Decoration

When it comes to the decoration part of the cake, I follow the main idea of all drip cakes. You want to have a smooth layer of frosting in between each layer of sponge, and then a crumb coat to seal in any of those crumbs. It’s so important to chill the cake between stages as well.

The frosting on the outside is smoothed around to create a perfect surface, and I find using a large metal scraper and a turntable the best way to achieve this. If you don’t have either, you can still make a pretty and beautiful cake, but it may not be perfect.

I used a white chocolate ganache drip, coloured red, to create my drip because I wanted to throw the theme of red velvet into everyone’s faces. Also, swirls of buttercream on top, along with cake crumbs just made it perfect.

Tips & Ideas

As mentioned above, you can use my red velvet cake recipe for a two-layer cake, or you can halve the sponge recipe on this post.

This cake lasts for 3+ days in the fridge (because of the cream cheese frosting!). If you use just vanilla buttercream, it can last 4 days at room temp.

For this recipe I used

• This food colouring
• This piping tip
• These piping bags
• This large metal scraper
• This turntable
• These cake tins

Find my other recipes on myRecipes Page!

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J x

©Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.