Pink Velvet Cake Recipe And Here’s How To Decorate It
Jan 13, 2016, Updated Apr 22, 2025
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With its delicious pink color and beautiful flowers, this pink velvet cake twist on the classic red velvet cake is as tasty to eat as it is gorgeous to look at! Plus, it’s easy to make and decorate!
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Pin ItDo you know how easy it is to decorate a cake?! ANYONE can do it, and we’re showing you with this gorgeous pink velvet cake recipe!
It’s almost too pretty to eat, just like our floral frosting cupcakes and lemon elderflower cake.
We topped this cake with strawberries, raspberries, beautiful pansies, and a few pomegranates to give it instant decor that’s not only effortless but stunning!
Your guests will adore this cake and the “effort” you put into decorating it. It’s by far my favorite red velvet cake recipe… we adapted it from Cook’s Illustrated and made it a pink velvet cake!
Although, you can go lighter on the pink if you prefer!
How To Make Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
Salt
Buttermilk
Eggs
Distilled White Vinegar
Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
Unsalted Butter
Granulated Sugar
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Whisk together buttermilk, eggs, vegetable oil, vinegar, and vanilla in a tall liquid measuring cup, and set aside.
- In a small bowl, add the cocoa powder and food coloring together, and set aside.
- In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer and a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on
medium-high .
- Reduce speed and then add the buttermilk mixture and flour in 3 additions, alternating.
- Add cocoa mixture and beat on low until everything is incorporated.
- Divide the batter into 2 greased 9-inch round pans.
- Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes. Try to take it out when the center is just a little wiggly.
NOTE: Everyone’s oven bakes differently based on many factors, do not take the cake out of the oven until you feel it is cooked. Use the toothpick method if you’re nervous about taking it out a little before.
How to make Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
- 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (must be soft!), and cut into chunks.
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 pound cream cheese, softened (must be soft!)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
What Is Pink Velvet Cake?
Pink velvet cake is very similar to red velvet cake, except it uses pink food coloring. Like red velvet cake, it is covered in it’s distinct and delicious cream cheese frosting.
What Does Pink Velvet Taste Like?
Pink velvet cakes are moist, fluffy, and light. They have an addictive and delicious mix of flavors that come through as:
- Mild cocoa
- Tangy buttermilk
- Sweet vanilla
- Smooth and buttery
Cake Decorating Made Simple
Cake decorating can sound ominous and time-consuming, but it really doesn’t have to be! For this pink velvet cake, we’ve added berries, pansies, and pomegranates to the top that all complement the cake perfectly, with minimal time and effort.
We love raspberry, just like these chocolate-filled raspberries and homemade raspberry fudge!
Tips For Making Pink Velvet Cake
- When baking the cake, make sure you place it in a preheated oven.
- Grease your cake pan before placing it in the ingredients.
- Make sure your ingredients are all at room temperature before getting started.
- Sift your dry ingredients to remove any lumps.
This pink velvet cake recipe is definitely a show-stopper, and it’s so easy to make! The next time you have company coming over or need to take a dessert somewhere, try this recipe out.
You won’t be disappointed!
Links To Other Decorated Cake Recipes
Pumpkin Spice Sunflower Cupcakes
Chocolate And Vanilla Mummy Cupcakes
Chocolate Chili Splatterpaint Cake by My Name Is Yeh
If you have tried this Pink Velvet Cake recipe, then please rate it and let us know how it turned out in the comments below!
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Pink Velvet Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 large eggs
- 1/8 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon pink food coloring
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Whisk together buttermilk, eggs, vegetable oil, vinegar and vanilla in a tall liquid measuring cup, set aside.
- In a small bowl, add the cocoa powder and food coloring together, set aside.
- In another bowl combine the flour, salt and baking soda, set aside. (Lots of setting aside : P)
- With an electric mixer and a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium high.
- Reduce speed and then add the buttermilk mixture and flour in 3 additions, alternating.
- Add cocoa mixture and beat on low until everything is incorporated.
- Divide the batter into 2, greased 9-inch round pans.
- Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, try to take it out when the center is just a little wiggly. NOTE: Everyone’s oven bakes differently based on many factors, do not take the cake out of the oven until you feel it is cooked. Use the tooth pick method if you’re nervous to take it out a little before.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I used this cake for cake pops. It was delicious.
Made the Pink Velvet Cake and it was lovely! I have a couple of questions about the cake batter which was quite thick. Do you melt the butter or just beat in the softened butter (which is what I did)? Do you use gel coloring (which I did) or liquid and what color?
Hi! Yes, you beat the softened butter with the sugar. Also, we used a pink good coloring gel. You can really adapt that part and get the color you prefer. Don’t forget the buttermilk and oil! That will help the thickness a little. But it is a dense moist cake!
Can I made it into a cupcakes?
Yes! Just change the baking time!
Hi Sugar and Charm,
I baked this cake for mothers day and it was a huge success! My mum loved it ????
Just one curious point… the volume of each ingredient for the frosting is outrageous! The amount of frosting I have left over is enough to decorate 4 more cakes!
Thanks for the amazing recipe.
Thanks Kimberly! I’m so happy you loved the recipe!! You’re right, it does make a lot of frosting and I guess you could cut it in half! I will put a note in there! Thank you!!
Hey!
Gorgeous cake!!
what can I replace buttercream with?
I’m not from the USA
Thank you!
Thanks! You should still be able to make buttercream? Otherwise any frosting will do!
Oh my gosh this is the prettiest cake ever! Loving the idea of a pink velvet cake – I never have thought to make something like it before.
How insanely gorgeous, I’d fear I would never want to eat it!
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That cake looks too good to eat.
Haha!! Thank you 🙂
There is no Print button so that you could just print the recipe. Wish there were. It wanted to print all the photos and that was going to take 12 sheets of paper. Wish you could fix that ! Thanks you…other than that…I’m fixing this for a party tomorrow…wish me luck !
Hi Carolyn!! We are going to be having print option on the new site which will be out this year! My suggestion is to copy and paste in a word doc and you can print that!! Good luck with the recipe… it’s one of my FAVES adapted from Cooks Illustrated!!
absolutely stunning!!!
Thank you Sara!!! It SO easy to decorate with flowers, haha!!!