Ah, cake. You are so beautiful. You with your luscious cream cheese frosting, pretty piping, and blue velvetiness inside…

What’s that?

You’re not blue!?

What happened!

Okay. So even though this “blue” velvet cake turned out more turquoise, it was still delicious. I made this for mother’s day this past weekend (also a joint birthday party for me and my sister. Yes, I make my own birthday cakes! Who doesn’t??) I was inspired to go the non-traditional route for a birthday cake for several reasons.

a.) My older sister requested a red velvet cake instead of chocolate.

b.) My younger sister got a new blue car this past weekend.

So I combined the two and came up with blue velvet cake. This should be easy! Simply take a red velvet cake recipe and replace the red food coloring with blue. Everyone will be so impressed over my baking skills!

Instead, my two brothers relentlessly made fun of me, laughing over my “moldy” cake and my unsuccessful attempts at making it blue.

Oh well Everyone ate it anyway.

Blue Velvet Cake (This is the same as my Red Velvet Cupcake recipe)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3-4 tbsp blue food coloring
• 1 tsp white distilled vinegar
• 1 tsp baking soda

For Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
• 2-3 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter two 9 inch cake pans.

2. In mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and cocoa powder. Set aside.

3. With an electric mixer, beat butter until soft and then add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat until combined.

4. Measure out the buttermilk in a measure cup and mix in the blue food coloring. NOTE: As you can see, I did not use enough blue food coloring here. If you don’t add enough, the blue mixed with the brown cocoa powder will turn a weird green color. I recommend adding more blue food coloring, or purple if you can find it. You want the buttermilk mixture to be extra extra dark. Alternately, you can also add more food coloring as necessary to the batter.

5. With mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter/sugar mixture.

6. In a small cup, combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter.

7. Spread evenly in cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the pan. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

8. For frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese for 3 minutes until smooth.

10. Add vanilla and mix. Slowly add the confectioners sugar until you get desired sweetness and thickness. Frost your cooled cake!

My Two Cents: Regardless of the color, this cake is DELICIOUS. If you don’t want to risk the odd green color you see here, either add more blue or go with the traditional red velvet cake (2 tbsp of red food coloring).

Good luck! I hope your cake comes out blue!