Waldorf Astoria Original Red Velvet Cake with Cooked Icing Copycat
This recipe is supposed to be similar to the original Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet Cake. If you want to use butter instead of shortening, pick a different cake because this one needs the shortening. Do not use anything other than cake flour and make sure to sift it or weigh it. Using too much flour makes red velvet cake dry.
Servings 12
Cost 5
Ingredients
- ½ cup shortening (96 grams)
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (285 grams)
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon butter extract
- 1 ½ ounces red food coloring (liquid type, such as McCormick)
- 3 tablespoons natural unsweetened natural cocoa powder, sifted (15 grams)
- 1 teaspoon salt I use Morton Kosher
- 2 ½ cups sifted cake flour, this means sifted before measuring if using volume, or just weigh (240 grams), make sure to weigh**
- 1 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
Cooked Icing aka Ermine Icing
- 3 tablespoons flour (23 grams)
- 1 cup whole milk (230 grams)
- ½ teaspoon salt omit if using salted butter
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks and at cool room temp. (230 grams)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200 grams)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray three 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans with flour-added cooking spray. For a higher ratio of cake to frosting, use two 9x2 inch pans. If you use three 8-inch or go with two 9-inch, you will probably need to tack on about 4 minutes to the cook time due to the batter being deeper.
- Using high speed of electric mixer, beat shortening and sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs, vanilla extract and butter extract, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
- Make a paste of red food coloring and cocoa powder, then stir that in. Or, do what I do and just stir the red food coloring and cocoa in, then beat. When the batter turns red, stir in the salt and beat so that it's very well mixed.
- Starting and ending with flour, add the flour and buttermilk alternately to batter, stirring so that flour gets absorbed.
- Place the baking soda in a little cup. Add the vinegar to the baking soda, then stir the fizzy vinegar mixture into the cake batter to lighten it.
- Now, empty the cake batter into the pans, dividing evenly. I weighed my last batch and got about 318 grams per pan (for 3 layers).
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs. Let cakes cool in pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Flip out of pans and cool completely.
- If your cake domes, you can trim off the domes and crumble them for garnish.
Icing Directions
- In a small, heavy saucepan, not yet over heat, whisk together flour and milk until smooth. Set over medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick and creamy. Be careful not to overcook or cook it over too high of a heat or you'll get lumps. Scrape into a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming, and let cool completely.
- Using your electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, beat butter and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Beat in the thoroughly cooled flour mixture. Beat until the icing is fluffy and no longer grainy. With a stand mixer and whisk this should take about 5 minutes. The icing will look very curdled at first, but should lose some of the curdled look as the sugar dissolves.
- Cover cake with frosting.
Notes
Cake flour weighs about 114 grams per cup, and sifted cake flour weighs 100 grams per cup. This is why the 2 ½ cups of flour in this recipe weighs around 240-250 grams.
All-purpose flour weighs up to 140 grams per cup, so if you scoop out 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour in place of sifted cake you are adding a lot more flour to the recipe -- almost 100 grams. If you don't have cake flour and you really want to make the cake, you can use all-purpose, but at a lesser volume amount. That is, weigh out 240-250 grams of all-purpose. The volume amount should be somewhere around 1 ¾ cup (maybe a little more). The important thing is the weight.
Instant Pot Red Velvet: Follow directions above, but use HALF of all the ingredients and pour batter into a 7 inch leak-proof springform with sides that are at least 3 inches high. Cover pan with foil. Boil 1 ½ cups of water in the microwave and pour it in the Instant Pot. Set the cake on the trivet and lower into the water. Close Instant Pot, set the valve to the center and set the time to 32 minutes. Pressure cook for 32 minutes. Wait 10 to 12 minutes before releasing valve, then remove top and very carefully lift cake from pan. Remove foil, let cool slightly, then remove sides.