Happy Valentines Day! Whether you are celebrating or not, why not make cake!

Did you know that traditionally Red Velvet Cake did not use red food colouring, they had that red colouring due to the non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa.

I couldn’t get my hands on this fancy cocoa so I’ve resorted to red food colouring, but it was still super tasty.

This cake is very moist and fluffy, and has a couple of substitutions to make it more satiating and nutritious.

You will need:

• 1 cup spelt flour or coconut flour – these flour alternatives contain increased vitamins and minerals which help regulate metabolism and improve immunity.
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 60g olive oil
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar
• 7ml red food colouring

Steps:

Preheat oven to 200˚C. In a small bowl place cocoa powder and red food colouring and mix. Add dribbles of water until the mixture becomes a smooth, velvet red paste.

Pour/sift all remaining ingredients into a large bowl and beat until smooth and fluffy. Then stir in red velvet cocoa paste.

Then you will need to grease the cake tin with coconut oil or olive oil. I used a small tin, since its a small cake, around 10cm in diameter. Afterwards, pour the mixture into the tin.

Bake for 30 minutes on 200˚C, or take out when the cake has risen significantly and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

For the icing, you can make your own cream cheese icing, or you can cheat a little and just use Betty Crockers vanilla icing which goes perfectly with the cake as well! You could also make this from scratch!

To make cream cheese icing just beat together 70g cream cheese, 40g unsalted butter and 1/2 cup icing sugar. Then ice away. Voila!

I sliced the cake in half horizontally and added a layer of icing in the middle. Then, I coated the outside of the cake in icing, and pumped little flourishes around the base and the top. Finally, I garnished with chopped fresh strawberries and an edible flower.

Enjoy! Have you made Red Velvet cake before?