I like red velvet cake. I do. I love the hint of sourness, the smooth fluffy chocolatey cake, and of course the cream cheese icing. Ah, heaven! But sometimes I’m a bit icky with food coloring. For the past year, I vow to to be au naturale with my product. That means no preservatives (never use it anyway), fresh ingredients (mandatory!), and of course very little to none of food coloring (that means bye bye tye die muffin & cake in my menu list). The only time I use food coloring is for coloring fondant or butter cream for a themed cake, but never the cake batter.

It’s been hard, since the cake trend here in Jakarta right now is still Red Velvet and now adding the Rainbow cake. I get soooo many request of RV & rainbow, but I stick to my vow, and refuse the requests. I know, maybe I’m just stupid for rejecting orders, which means money. But I stand still to my decision, au naturale it is!

Back to red velvet, reading the recipe, a realization came (d-uh), I can still have the velvety taste without using the coloring. Red velvet without the red, well.. It’s basically just chocolate cake. Chocolate Velvet cake. Yay!

so here’s the recipe for my Chocolate Velvet Cake. It only make 2 stacks of 18cm round baking pan. Feel free to double the recipe for bigger cake.

Chocolate Velvet Cake :

• 40 grams of unsalted butter
• 90 grams granulated sugar
• 100 grams all purpose flour
• 25 grams cacao powder
• 1 large egg
• 75 ml buttermilk
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tbsp vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)

Cream Cheese frosting :

• 250 grams cream cheese
• 75 ml whipping cream
• 5-10 tbsp icing sugar

Directions :

1. preheat the oven to 175 celcius degrees
2. cream butter, sugar & egg until light & fluffy.
3. mix flour & cacao powder. Add to the wet mixture, alternately with the buttermilk.
4. in a small bowl, mix the baking powder with vinegar, it’ll became bubbly. Add the mixture into the batter, mix lightly until fully incorporated.
5. pour equally into 2 round baking pans, 18 cm.
6. bake for 20 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. Wait until cool before frosting.

While waiting for the cake to bake, we make the frosting/icing. Please take note, I don’t like too much sweetness on my cream cheese icing. Most of the american recipes you will find around the internet require massive amount of sugar. This is my own recipe to my likeness. The frosting will be very soft, cannot be frost into a stiff peak. I do not use butter, but whipping cream, which help to tone down the sourness without having to use too much sugar. The taste will be light & milky. Feel free to use your own cream cheese frosting.

1. whip the whipping cream into soft peak.
2. in a different bowl, cream the cream cheese & sugar until soft & fluffy.
3. slowly incorporate the whip cream into the cream cheese using spatula.

Frost the cake away!