Large Red Velvet Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Red Velvet Cupcakes recipe (from Kitchen and on the Nigella website) makes 24 cupcakes or can be used to make a 2-layer cake using two 25cm (10-inch) round cake pans. The baking time is approxinately 25 - 30 minutes but check carefully, the top of the cake should be firm and a cake tester inserted into the centre should come out clean.

The buttery cream cheese icing in the recipe is enough to sandwich the large cake and put a layer of icing on top. The mixture is half butter and half cream cheese and we suggest using a full fat cream cheese (such as Philadelphia). In the UK it may be labelled as "soft white cheese" or "soft cheese" and look for a fat content of about 33% (the reason is that the UK has a cream cheese with higher fat content). Don't use the lower fat versions as the icing can become too runny. Also the types of cream cheese in tubs can be a little soft so if you buy this type you may want to beat the butter and icing sugar together first then beat in the cream cheese a little at a time. It is possible to use mascarpone if you can't find cream cheese, but you don't want to beat the mascarpone too much so just mix it in carefully at the end after beating together the butter and icing sugar.