Christmas Day is quickly approaching – don’t be caught short without a cake. Today I’m showing you how to make my Christmas velvet cake.
It’s a super easy cake inspired by the vintage or faded colours of Christmas past. Starting two layers of red velvet and green velvet cake, layered and coated with vanilla Italian meringue buttercream – finished with a white chocolate drip and Christmas sprinkles. Whats not to like?
You have bio excuse not to impress your guests this Christmas. After the past year or uncertainty, we all deserve to have a wonderful holiday time – thats why you should make this cake. Cake is always a good idea, no questions.
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Velvet Cake (for two layers):
20g cocoa powder.
Red or green food colouring.
1 tsp vanilla extract.
125g butter.
300g granulated sugar.
3 eggs.
190g plain flour.
1/4 tsp salt.
125ml buttermilk.
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
1 1/2 tsp white vinegar.
Italian meringue buttercream:
I have a blog post all about this buttercream, so will link it here for you to read and enjoy.
Decoration:
White chocolate spread, for the drip.
Christmas sprinkles – I chose OCD (obsessive Christmas disorder) by Halo Sprinkles.
Method:
Before you get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep. Start by getting all of your ingredients weighed up, lining your cake tins and getting any equipment you may need ready, such as a stand mixer and spatula. Preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
Start by taking a mixing bowl and placing in the butter and sugar – beat the two together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition – then give the bowl a scraping down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on.
Now you can add in the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and food colouring. Mix until everything have been fully incorporated.
Then alternate between the dry ingredients and the buttermilk, repeating the process until you have nothing left.
Give the bowl one final scarping down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully incorporated.
Split the mixture between your cake batter between the cake tins, either by eye or using scales to get a more accurate weight. Spread and level out the batter as best you can – thinner transfer into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so – a tester should come out clean when inserted into the centre.
While the cakes are in the oven, you can make the buttercream – for this you will want to make the Italian meringue buttercream, which is super easy but to save me wasting my time, I’ll leave a link to the recipe which gives you all the information you’ll need.
If you want to, to keep the cake moist and preserve them, make some simple syrup also. This is just equal parts sugar and water, bought a boil and allowed to cool.
For the decorating process, its really easy. Once you have all the elements – so your sponges, simple syrup and buttercream.
Generously brush your layers of cake over with simple syrup, if you’re using them.e
To start the assembly, take your board/plate/stand and smear a small amount of buttercream into the centre. This is to secure the cake into place and ensure it stays there, then top a layer of cake on top. Top this with a liberal amount of buttercream and level it out – repeat the process until you have no layers of cake left.
Colour your buttercream in red and green, matching the cakes and place into piping bags and then pipe rings around the cake – try to make them as equal as possible. Scrape away excess and place into a new piping fitted with your nozzle of choice.
Around the bottom of the cake, I take sprinkles and create a sort of border but this is optional.
Once smoothed out, place the cake into the fridge and allow to cool. Now is the ideal time to warm the white chocolate spread, just enough to make sure it runs down the cool cake enough, if its too hot, let it cool down until its the right consistency.
Remove the cake from the fridge and apply the drip. I find adding the white chocolate into a piping bags gives me the most control but you do it however works best for you. Allow the cake to chill in the fridge until he white chocolate has firmed up some.
Now you can take the excess buttercream and pipe rosettes on top of the cake, filling the centre with white chocolate spread and topping the rosettes with the matching sprinkles from the bottom edge.
If you had some rods, you can apply them on the side of the cake, like I have or leave it – its up to you!
Then chill until needed.
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.
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