There’s not much better than a soft, velvety, red cake bar that’s smothered in divinely-amazing cream cheese frosting! This prettily-colored dessert is perfect for Valentine’s Day!
My kids told me the other day that “January is boring”, and I had to kind of agree with them. I mean, the excitement of the holidays are over, the decorations are tucked in storage for another year, and there’s not a whole lot going on this month, at least by way of events that we can look forward to.
Other than ringing in the New Year, this month can be kind of a let down after all the December festivities, at least in our experience. That is, unless we receive a crazy amount of snow and the kids get time off school because of it. Then this month quickly becomes the most awesome of all! 🙂
We are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of February, because we have some fun Valentine’s traditions that we do together as a family in celebration of Love Day. The kids know that their little tin mailboxes will come out and they can expect a tiny treat or treasure in them each day leading up to the 14th.
Another thing that I always look forward to that of course goes hand-in-hand with Valentine’s Day are the special, decadent desserts! And the day just wouldn’t be complete without some red velvety goodness!
I’m not really one to set new year’s resolutions, but I did tell myself that I’d work out more. But more than what I had been working out last year is technically not a lot, so there’s some wiggle room there. 🙂
But when I do convince myself to get in that 30 minute sweat session, it’s usually on days where I know I’ll be rewarding myself with dessert, like these Red Velvet Cake Bars. They are worth every burpee, squat, and mountain climber you may need to do to earn these tasty delights. 🙂 Trust me.
Red Velvet Cake Bars
Ingredients
- 1 c. vegetable oil
- 1 1/4 c. sugar
- 1/2 c. buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 to 1 tsp. red food coloring gel I like the gel because it doesn't add liquid, yet it's highly color saturated
- 2 c. all-purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 Tbsp. baking cocoa
- Frosting:
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 1/2 c. butter softened
- 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Coat a 9"x13" pan with nonstick cooking spray. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla and red food coloring gel. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda and baking cocoa.
- Add flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating, while mixing. At this point, if you'd like to enhance the red color of the batter, mix in more red food coloring gel until desired color is reached.
- Spread mixture into prepared pan and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or just until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Moist crumbs are ideal.
- For the frosting, in the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together all ingredients until creamy and fluffy. Spread over cooled bars. Slice and serve.
They’re soft and cake-like, while resembling that more dense brownie texture at the same time. I’ve always been a sucker for cream cheese frosting and these are definitely not short on it.
I don’t think these Red Velvet Bars could be any more perfect! I hope you love them too!
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