Purple Velvet Bundt

← All recipes

♡Save to my favourites

Velvet cakes use a little cocoa, buttermilk, and a vinegar-and-soda reaction for their signature soft crumb. Swapping the classic red for a blue-leaning violet gel gives you a colour that reads as purple even after baking dulls it. Bake it in a bundt so the ridged shape carries the drippy glaze.

Ingredients

Cake

• 340 g plain flour
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 340 g caster sugar
• 240 ml neutral oil
• 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk, room temperature
• 240 ml buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 tsp clear vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• Blue-violet gel food colouring (about 1 1/2 tsp, to taste)

Marigold glaze

• 115 g cream cheese, softened
• 120 g icing sugar
• 2–3 tbsp milk
• Pinch of saffron steeped in 1 tbsp warm milk, or a few drops yellow gel

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175°C (fan 160°C). Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt tin thoroughly, getting into every groove.
2. Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, oil, eggs, and yolk until smooth, then whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla, and enough gel colour to make it a shade darker than you want the finished cake.
4. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Stir the vinegar in last — the batter will lighten slightly as it reacts. Do not overmix.
5. Pour into the tin, tap it on the counter to release air bubbles, and bake 45–50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool in the tin 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely. Glazing a warm cake makes the glaze slide off.
7. Beat the glaze ingredients together, adding milk a little at a time until it ribbons thickly off the spoon. Pour over the cooled cake so it pools in the ridges and drips down the sides.

Colour tip: butter and yolks pull purple toward grey. Clear vanilla and a gel that leans blue rather than red are what keep it looking violet. See the techniques page for more on getting a true purple.