This is fantastic for last-minute dinners, Christmas, birthday parties, and any other event. The boys particularly enjoy it during the Super Bowl. BIG KID APPEAL Simple, quick, and you probably already have all the materials at home. You won’t be let down!
| Servings: | 18 |
| Yield: | 1 to 9 x 13-inch cake |
Ingredients
- 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
- 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
- 4 eggs
- 1 ounce red food coloring
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup cold milk
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
- 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
- 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9 x 13 inch pan.
- Mix together cake mix, 1 box pudding mix, eggs, oil, food coloring, water, vinegar, and cocoa. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool.
- Beat together milk and cream cheese. Mix in 1 box pudding mix. Fold in whipped topping. Spread on cooled cake. Refrigerate.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 325 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 37 g |
| Cholesterol | 57 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 407 mg |
| Sugars | 24 g |
| Fat | 18 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Cake was a success. Hubby enjoyed his birthday cake
Loved it. However, I added red velvet jello pudding to a box red velvet cake. It was amazing. As a new cook, I was shocked by how many people loved it!
I added a bit of extra cocoa and slightly reduced the red food color and this came out great! I was a bit nervous it would be dry as it stuck a bit to the pan. I was able to remove it without any damage. I would recommend letting the cream cheese come to room temp before mixing for the frosting. I think white cake mix would work just as well as the yellow. Everyone loved it!
Oh my goodness so delicious. Easy and moist. I added 2 tablespoons of cocoa and only a few drops of red food coloring. It was too brown to look like red velvet cake but it sure did taste like it. I made my own cream cheese frosting. Even my husband that doesn’t like cake devoured it.
This is perfect for Christmas Eve Dessert.
Very easy moist cake. I followed exact instructions. Loved the light (not too sweet) icing. Next time I am going to add a little more cocoa for I would have liked a little more chocolate flavor.
I used many of the other reviewer‘s suggestions… White cake mix, 1 ounce red food coloring, 4 tablespoons cocoa , 1 teaspoon vanilla And about 1 1/4 cups water. I made mine with 3. 9 inch round pans and I used a basic cream cheese Frosting recipe. It was absolutely delicious! Got rave reviews at the birthday party that I furnished it for.
As written, I don’t think this recipe is anything special. Kind of bland. However, it was very moist, so the next time I made it I made a few adjustments as recommended by other reviewers, and ended up with my family’s new favorite chocolate cake recipe. Yes, chocolate cake, not red velvet! I didn’t have red food coloring and I took the suggestion of adding 4 TBSP of cocoa powder (I happened to have Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder on hand, highly recommend!) as well as trading out vanilla pudding for chocolate pudding. Added a dash of vanilla extract to the mixture and I ended up with a great, moist chocolate cupcake. To prevent too many lumps and clumps, I mix together my dry ingredients and whisk well, then I add together my wet ingredients and mix well, then put it all together and try to mix it before the pudding starts to do its thing and gets very thick. These bake up very quickly as cupcakes, by the way. Check early and often; I make 12 huge cupcakes from the recipe, and they are done at 350 degrees after about 17-19 minutes.
I made this for a recent birthday. I did substitute butter for the vegetable oil, added 4 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 tablespoon of vanilla and 1-1/3 c. water. It was a HUGE success! Very light and airy. Unfortunately, we were not fans of the frosting. Thank you for a recipe we will repeat with the substitutions suggested by others. Thanks for those to all who reviewed this recipe.
This is my family’s favorite recipe for birthday cakes! We change out the pudding flavors to suit each person’s taste.. The best frosting recipe on the web is right here! Fluffy, not too sweet. I’ve used whole milk in the cake recipe a few times but you don’t need it. Cake is super moist, tender and takes ingredient changes very well. Thank you for this great recipe!
A nice easy cheat way to make red velvet cake.
I used this for a wedding cake and cupcakes, and got so many complements on it. It turned out wonderfully moist!
Very good yummy and moist. I used a 16.5oz box of classic white cake mix instead. It turned out great!!
It was marvelous!! Really had the Red Velvet flavor. I did make mine with the some of the suggestions made by TAMSHEROWNBOSS: Exchange 1/2 cup of the oil for melted butter and added 3 TBSP total cocoa. The pudding I used was “cheesecake” flavor. The cake was super moist and exactly right. THANK YOU 🙂 ???
This isn’t a bad cake but it isn’t much of a red velvet cake. To me it tasted more like a red yellow cake, I could still taste the yellow cake mix. I made it with my daughter and it was moist and pretty but it didn’t taste like red velvet to me it just looked like one. I would reccomend trying a chocolate/ devils food cake mix if you want to use a cake mix to make a red velvet cake or even just adding some extras to a red velvet mix.
This is okay. It works. C’mon, this is a cake mix, NOT a “from scratch” cake and as such it shouldn’t be compared against the from scratch version. A little short on flavor perhaps, but then I find “the real thing” to have the same issue (except for the McCormick recipe). My criticism then, is not so much how it rates compared to a from scratch Red Velvet cake from your childhood you remember your grandma making so much as I don’t like the big holes that appeared. Not attractive. But put this in a pretty cupcake liner (baked as cupcakes about 22 minutes), top with cream cheese frosting, and you’ve got a legitimately passable Red Velvet Cake.
This was a great recipe. I increased the cocoa to 2 tablespoons, and used a basic cream cheese frosting in lieu of the one in the recipe.
Good, but is this your recipient
I’m rating this cake in the middle of the road. I’ll explain. The cake being a box mix, mixed with other ingredients and not home made from scratch was still really good. Not that hard to make or follow to a T. I rate the cake a 5 star. I can’t rate the frosting with the cake very well to what I was expecting. While it was also easy to assemble and ease of the ingredients. I didn’t like the fact, that it didn’t taste like cream cheese frosting with the listed ingredients. My daughter liked it but to say it was cream cheese frosting, I honestly can’t. It was a pudding frosting. It didn’t have the right style of flavor of a true cream cheese frosting….even with the cream cheese in the frosting. The pudding mix, totally over powered and masked the flavor intended for a red velvet cake with traditional cream cheese frosting. Sorry. It really didn’t do justice to my taste buds and I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with it. I am sorry I didn’t like the frosting flavor at all. I’ll make the cake again but not the frosting.
I decided to finally make a Red Velvet Cake to see what the hype was all about…Boy, was this a hit in my family…I gave a piece to my dghtr to take to work and it flew off her plate as soon as she unwrapped it…I drove to my other dghtr’s workplace at lunch time and same reaction… Everybody just Looooved it!!!! Great, Great, Great Recipe!! Only thing was I used the recipe from Cream Cheese Frosting II and that was Awesome too!!! This is now our family favorite!
The cake itself was good. The frosting was just meh. Didn’t matter – people at the office ate it up!