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Red Velvet Sheet Cake

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Red Velvet Sheet Cake
Red Velvet Sheet Cake

I’m such a sucker for red velvet anything.

The problem with that is that not all red velvet desserts are created equally. Some red velvet cakes are dry and tasteless and sad. Others are as tasty as they are pretty.

This red velvet sheet cake is the latter. It is moist and has great red velvet flavor. It is similar to a Texas sheet cake, and it has a lot of the same good qualities as that cake (easy to make, tender, and great flavor).

The cake is topped with a tangy cream cheese icing for that nice contrast of tangy and sweet. I use a little buttermilk in the frosting to up the tang, but you can use regular milk if you prefer.

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Red Velvet Sheet Cake

Easy red velvet cake recipe

Author: i heart eating
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cake, red velvet
Servings: 20
Red Velvet Sheet Cake
4.84 from 6 votes
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Ingredients

Red Velvet Cake

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder*
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons red food coloring (1 oz.)

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 8 oz. cream cheese softened
  • 2 tablespoons butter softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/2-3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1-3 tablespoons buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 15x10-inch rimmed baking pan. Set aside.

  2. Stir flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

  3. In a heavy saucepan over low heat, combine butter, water, and cocoa powder. Bring to boil, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat, and stir in eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and food color.Stir until well-combined.

  5. Stir in flour mixture until combined.

  6. Pour batter into prepared pan.

  7. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  8. Cool in the pan to room temperature. 

  9. To make the frosting, beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together until well-combined.

  10. Stir in powdered sugar and enough milk to make desired consistency.

  11. Frost cooled bars with cream cheese frosting. 

  12. Chill any leftovers. 

Recipe Notes

*Not Dutch-processed

**Nutrition values are estimates. 

***Whipped Buttercream Frosting is a great alternative frosting if you prefer vanilla frosting to cream cheese frosting.

Nutrition facts per serving (1g)

Calories: 289kcal
Fat: 12g
Saturated fat: 7g
Cholesterol: 50mg
Sodium: 243mg
Potassium: 75mg
Carbohydrates: 41g
Sugar: 30g
Protein: 3g
Vitamin A: 8.2%
Vitamin C: 0.1%
Calcium: 3.3%
Iron: 4.6%

Adapted from BHG.

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  2. Best red velvet cake! I don’t really like red velvet cake but had to make one for an event. This was very easy to make and absolutely delicious. My daughter, the baker in the family, said it was the moistest cake she’d ever had.

    Reply

  5. Hi there! I’m curious about something. I’m making a double layer 1/2 sheet cake for a wedding shower. I’m not finding many recipes that people use for this. I want to use yours because your cake looks the most moist, but my pans are larger. They are 2 x 18.6 x 12.5. Do you think this recipe (doubled, of course) will work for this? I’m not wanting each cake to be it’s full height since I am stacking them. Just wondering what your thoughts are on the cooking time? Thanks in advance!

    Reply

    • Thank you! Gosh, I haven’t tried to double this recipe, so I’m not sure how it will work out. Normallly, when I double something (like brownies), I add 5-10 minutes on and then go from there. However, if you don’t want the cakes to be full height, they may bake in the same amount of time. I’m just not sure, and I’d hate to steer you wrong.

      Reply

    • Hi! I don’t let it cool first. I make sure that I’m whisking the whole time I’m adding, though, because otherwise the eggs will scramble. Hope that helps!

      Reply

  7. Can I sub the water for milk or coconut oil? That’s usually what I do for thw majority of my recipes but I don’t want to mess it up?!

    Reply

    • I’m not sure! Can I ask why you wouldn’t want to use water?
      Subbing milk for water can create a richer cake, but since there’s already buttermilk in the cake, I’m not sure what effect adding additional milk will have.
      I would be hesitant to add a cup of coconut oil to the cake in place of the cup of water. The water helps to create a lighter, fluffier batter, and the coconut oil won’t have that same effect.

      Reply

  9. Tasted great, it was fairily easy to make. Cake wss fuffy and tasted not so sweet, which was nice with the frosting I made (from another recipe, it was coockie dough buttercream). The one off thing about this cake is that it looks very dark, not very red at all – I added a lot of gel-colouring which would have colored red 4 batches of cookies, but it was “killed off” by the chocolate…

    Reply

    • Glad you liked it! I used regular liquid food color and didn’t have any issues with the color. Maybe all of the gel color, which is more concentrated, gave it a darker color?

      Reply

  10. Hi! I am making this for my son’s lacrosse team. How many teenagers will this feed? :) It looks delicious and their team colors are red,white and black!

    Reply

    • Thanks! Normally, I would say that it makes 20-24 servings. For teenagers? Maybe half of that. =) Hope that helps!

      Reply

    • I haven’t tried baking it in an 11×15. I would guess that it would work, but you would probably need to adjust the baking time. Good luck!

      Reply