Hershey's® Red Velvet Cake

"This cake is well worth the cost of a few bottles of red food coloring! I used real butter, and followed the recipe to the letter, including the store-bought frosting, which I normally don't like. B..." See moreTW, Pillsbury Vanilla frosting is actually pretty tasty and went perfectly with the mild flavor of this cake. I did need about 1 1/2 containers of frosting, but I also used two large layers and frosted in-between. The finished product is very moist, has a great flavor, looks very impressive!"

"When I saw the hershey recipe, I thought that I had found a great recipe, afterall it's by Hershey, right? Wrong! There are so many changes that I had to make that I won't be making this cake again! ..." See more First of all the red food colouring...2 Tbsp is NOT enough. I increased this to 2 oz of red food colouring (two-1oz bottles) -the next thing I changed was the flour, instead of all purpose, I used cake flour, and increased it to 2 1/2 cups, and I increased the butter to 1 cup. Next, I omitted the vinegar, and decreased the baking soda to 1 1/4 tsp -quite simply there is NO need for vinegar, to be used in a red velvet cake as long as buttermilk is in the recipe, buttermilk is acidic enough to get the baking soda to rise. I also decreased the salt to 1/2 tsp. The vanilla gave it a subtle flavour, but normally I do not use vanilla in my red velvet cakes. Lastly, the quantity of cocoa was way too much, red velvet cake should have a hint of chocolate, but not be overwhelming, therefore I reduced the amount to 3 Tbsp. I didn't make it heart shaped, though I'm sure the cake would be gorgeous as a valentines day cake. I didn't use the vanilla frosting or the mini chocolate chips, I chose to use a fluffy white icing that comes from my mom, no cream cheese for this Red Velvet Snob! I truly wish I could have given this cake a higher rank, but after so much time consuming changes, I have to give it a three."

"This is the ABSOLUTE BEST RED VELVET CAKE recipe I have ever used. I made this for my mother-in-law's birthday and everyone loved it...." See more"