Red Velvet (pound?) Cake recipe dense enough to stack 3 teir

If you are not dedicated to a scratch recipe, here is a doctored cake mix recipe that I have used in tiered cakes and carved cakes and cakes made in the Wilton 3D Skull pan. (Note: I am a hobby baker. I do not sell cakes.)

I recently did an anonymous taste test with 12 members of my Cake Club. Each of these members has many years of experience in the cake decorating community or bakery business. Each of them has tasted or made LOT of cakes!

I asked them to rate 4 of my most popular cakes (along with 5 buttercreams and 9 fillings/ganaches) from 1 to 5 stars. The instructions were as follows:
Please circle 1 to 5 stars for each tasting.
1 star = poor
3 stars = appropriate to sell to custom cake clients
5 stars = Best you've ever tasted

The results for this exact Red Velvet recipe were:
1 person gave it 1 star
2 people gave it 2 stars
5 people gave it 3 stars
1 person gave it 4 stars
2 people gave it 5 stars

So....3 people said it was not appropriate to be sold as a "custom cake" recipe. And....8 people said it was "appropriate to sell to custom cake clients" or BETTER. (1 person didn't like Red Velvet and didn't taste it.)


Courtesy of BlakesCakes from CakeCentral.comDOCTORED RED VELVET CAKE:

1 Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake Mix (18.25 oz)
1 box white chocolate (hard to find) or chocolate instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract

BlakesCakes: Hand mix all ingredients until incorporated and then mix on medium with a hand mixer for 1:30 to 2:00 minutes. Bake at 325 until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake is tasty and sturdy. I often ice with a 50/50 mixture of homemade buttercream and canned cream cheese icing so that the cake can stay at room temp for long periods.
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I strongly suggest that you make a recipe up immediately, then taste it/carve it and see what you think.

Welcome to the forum! I was in your shoes a couple of years ago when I put my first post on CakeCentral. So many lovely people have shared tips, techniques, and recipes with me over the past 2-1/2 years. This is just a tiny bit of trying to pay back all that kindness and knowledge.

What is your skill level? It's hard to tell without any photos for reference. Have you done a stacked wedding cake before?

Since most of my red velvet cakes end up in situations where they may not be refrigerated, I've used the icing combination mentioned above: 50/50 mixture of homemade buttercream and canned cream cheese icing. This combination is ok to leave out of the refrigerator for hours (even days).

If you already have a red velvet recipe that you like, use it. You don't need to make it any denser. Cake doesn't support cake when stacking, the support system (boards and dowels or straws, SPS, whichever you prefer) is what holds up the cake in stacking. Theoretically, you could stack an angel food cake since it is not the cake that supports the upper tiers.

You are obviously building your first 3 tier cake.

Read EVERYTHING on the Wilton website on making tiered cakes as there are pics attached www.wilton.com. Even if you don't buy the brand, read the info...as you so clearly don't know anything about what you need to do next weekend.

Then get onto google and do a search for "building tiered cake" to get more info...as you might need a tutorial instead of still pictures.

Sounds like you're just having fits because you haven't done this for a while. YOU'LL BE FINE!!!! Just get on that bike and start pedaling....

I actually use the 50/50 homemade/canned cream cheese frosting mixture as the filling, then use regular crusting buttercream as my outer icing and decorating icing. I haven't tried using the 50/50 mixture to cover and decorate the entire cake.

It cracks me up that brides are asking for stuff like real cream cheese frosting or whipped cream frosting when they are going to have an August or September wedding outdoors in hot/humid Alabama. Hello???? Here's yer sign

Real butter melts at 90-95 degrees F.* If you can find any store brand shortening that has 1 to 3 grams of transfats listed on the ingredients, use that instead of the zero transfat Crisco.

Now throw out all those "second guessing yourself" thoughts! Remember the gorgeous cakes you used to whip out in no time. Remember your tried and true buttercream recipes for hot/humid weather. Get to bakin' and decorating!!!

*http://www.joepastry.com/2006/buttercream_and_the_melting_point/

Cool! Can't wait for your next report!