Red Velvet Poke Cake
Red velvet cake is infused with sweetened condensed milk and topped with the best cream cheese frosting. A must for Valentine’s Day!
Poke cakes have been around for a long, long time. I remember getting recipes for different versions through email “recipe exchanges” back in the early 2000’s. That’s when they popped onto my radar, and I have a feeling that they had been floating around for decades before that.
This cake was my first go at a completely from-scratch poke cake. I have a deep love for better than sex cake, which features the combination of chocolate cake, caramel topping, Cool Whip, and Heath bits that has been popular for ages, but in anticipation of Valentine’s Day in 2013, I wanted to go all-in on homemade cake. This red velvet poke cake is based on my red velvet cupcake recipe, is infused with sweetened condensed milk (ahh, shades of tres leches cake!) and topped with my favorite cream cheese frosting.
I doubled the recipe for my red velvet cupcakes and baked it in a 9×13-inch pan. Once it came out of the oven, I poked holes all over the top using a metal skewer and poured a can of sweetened condensed milk over top. The idea is to let the sweetened condensed milk slowly seep into the cake, giving it a boost of flavor and keeping it incredibly moist. You can’t have red velvet without cream cheese frosting, so once the cake cooled completely, I slathered cream cheese frosting over the top and showered it with some pretty pink, red and white sprinkles.
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This is the red velvet cake of dreams. I made it again a couple of weeks ago for Sunday dinner dessert and everyone loved it. Those dinners are a great way for me to gauge how good a recipe is – our family is made up of quite a varying array of tastes and preferences, so if I serve something that EVERYONE goes nuts over, then I know it’s a for-sure winner.
Watch How to Make Red Velvet Poke Cake (video):
What’s YOUR favorite poke cake recipe? There are still a million I want to try!
One year ago: King Bundt Cake
Five years ago: Red Velvet Cheesecake
Red Velvet Poke Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 6 tablespoons red food coloring
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk
- 2¼ cups (281.25 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 14 ounce (396.89 ml) can sweetened condensed milk
For the Frosting:
- 1 cup (236.59 g) salted butter, at room temperature
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) cream cheese, at room temperature
- 3½ cups (420 g) powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan.
- On medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to high and add the eggs. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.
- In a separate small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food coloring to make a thick paste. Add to the batter and mix on medium speed until completely combined. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk. Add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining milk and flour. Beat on high until smooth, about 1 minute.
- Again, reduce the mixer speed to low and add the salt, baking soda and vinegar. Turn to high and beat for another 2 minutes until completely combined and smooth.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing the top into an even layer with a spatula. Bake until a thin knife or skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes.
- Remove the cake from the oven and immediately poke holes all over the top of the cake. You can use the end of a wooden spoon, a skewer, the tines of a fork, etc. Slowly pour the can of condensed milk all over the top of the cake, making sure to drizzle it evenly all over the top. If it pools along the edges, use a spoon to scoop it up and redistribute it on top. Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting and decorating.
- Make the Frosting: Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the butter and cream cheese on high speed for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl down as necessary. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the powdered sugar until all is incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Increase the speed to medium high and whip for a few minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy, scraping the bowl as necessary.
- Spread the frosting evenly over the top of the cake and decorate as desired. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Yes!! The same thing has always kept me from making a poke cake too! I didn’t want to go buy a bunch of packaged mixes when I don’t bake that way ordinarily. And when I make a cake from scratch, I don’t want people to assume that I just whipped out a few boxes and tah-dah. So glad you made this. It looks amazing!!
Mmmmm. Now I know what to do with the can of condensed milk that I have had for years!
Sweetened condensed milk will go bad…be sure to check the expiration date on the can!!!
I’m so hungry right now and it looks so good,I could eat the whole pan!
No calories here….but lots of love!
Now THIS is a red velvet I can get on board with. People have gone a bit Red Velvet crazy and it seems like real red velvet got lost along to way. So glad to see a classic recipe but even better :)
SUCH a pretty cake for Valentine’s Day!!! I lurrrrve poke cakes and this one looks FABULOUS and DECADENT.
Do you think you could make these into cupcakes by poking a couple of holes in each cupcake and pouring a little amount of each cupcake? Looks so delish!
Hi Kristi, You could definitely do that. Since cupcakes are so much smaller and more delicate, I would probably recommend making smaller holes, using the tines of a fork or a thin skewer.
Okay – so I know this is going to sound silly and hopefully not a stupid question realizing it is RED velvet cake. I try to avoid food coloring — If I don’t add the red coloring will that take away from the moistness since it’s 6 Tablespoons of liquid? I really would like to try this – I do have natural food coloring but it’s really pricey and 6 tablespoons might clean me out!
Hi Dee, Not a stupid question! You can leave out the food coloring if you’d like (of course the cake won’t have a red color to it), I would just replace it with water so the liquid is not lost.
Use beet juice! That’ what was originally used in red velvet cakes. It’s all natural and has a tasty subtly sweet flavor.
My old co-worker use to always bring poke cakes to work. Love this one!
My grandmother used to make an insanely good coconut poke cake. Yellow cake with cream of coconut poured on the top then a tasty white icing with coconut sprinkled on top. Out of this world!
I’m with you on the boxed cake mix thing — from scratch tastes so much better and has quality ingredients. I love red velvet anything, and since I just made red velvet brownies with cream cheese frosting, I’m gonna have to wait to make this cake until those are gone! I could eat both, I guess?
Just baked this cake, but it took forever to bake! It took at least 45 minutes for the centre of the cake to be done. The cake itself had also become very high in te middle and flat at the sides… what could be the problem??
I will finish the cake with frosting but it really doesn’t look all that good to give away as a Valentine’s gift now.
Hi Rieneke, I’m sorry you had some problems. It definitely should not take that long to bake, and being in there so long is what may have caused the middle to dome up. While the sides will be slightly lower than the middle (you can see that on my cake) the middle shouldn’t rise dramatically. Did you use a 9×13-inch pan, or another size? I would also check to make sure your oven temperature is correct and not running on the cool side, which could also cause that problem.
Thanks for the reply! I will try again soon. I think the temperature of my oven might be running low. I scraped off the dome of the cake and covered the rest with the frosting so it still looks pretty good! And the scraps tasted great, so all is not lost!
Hi. In regards to the doming up, I have a tip that I picked up from a pro baker. If you want the top of your cake flat, as soon as it comes out of the oven still hot/warm, you can take a piece of parchment paper and lay over the top of the cake to prevent it from sticking. While it’s covered, take another pan or another light item of equivalent size (such as another similar size pan or your hands) to apply gentle pressure pushing down gently on the cake. It’s pliable while it’s still warm. Don’t worry if you crack the top some if you’re going to be icing it. This works great for 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans especially. For my 13×9, I found a $1 plastic unused kitty litter pan that works wonders and doubles as a storage bin to hold spice containers in my cabinet when not in use. Hope this helps and happy baking!
Mine also took almost 45 minutes to bake. I use a separate oven thermometer and it was definitely set at 350 degrees. Mine didn’t dome up though and is sitting and soaking up that yummy condensed milk goodness right now!
I just made it, and the same thing happened to mine: it took 45 minutes to bake and rose high in the middle. It also cracked where it rose. I turned up the heat a bit when I saw how slowly it was baking.
I baked it in a glass 9 x 13 pan. Could using glass rather than metal make a difference?
Hi Tracey, I baked mine in a glass pan and it definitely didn’t take that long to bake.
You are an evil genius my friend :) It’s a good thing I don’t have sweetened condensed milk in the house or I might be making this for lunch!
I made my own sweetened condensed milk yesterday. Heat 2 c. whole milk
3/4 c. sugar until it’s just barely simmering. Reduce heat to low and reduce by half. When reduced to your liking, whisk in 4 Tbs. butter and 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla.
OMG…I am totally going to make this cake this weekend! Endless possibilities come to mind after seeing this post! I love your blog…it’s always a bright spot in my day! Thanks!
Oh sounds so good!
I’m with you. I seldom use boxed mixes. It’s not that they don’t taste good, it’s just all of the weird ingredients that go into them that scare me. This cake made from scratch looks so moist and delicious – yum!
Mamma mia!!! Buonissima!!! WOW
That’s the same reason I’ve never made a poke cake before – I really don’t fancy putting a load of pre-made stuff together!
Love the idea of making it from scratch, though, and I can’t get over how adorable your sprinkles are!
That image of pouring the condensed milk over the cake had me almost drooling! So good!!!
Love the cake and love all the pokes in it! Great idea!!! I’m also loving the sprinkles on top, too cute!!
No buttermilk; can I substitute with something else?
When I don’t have buttermilk on hand (which I seldom ever do) I sour regular milk with a tsp. of lemon juice, or vinegar.
oops, that was meant to be 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Sorry…
Thank you so much – so helpful!
Hi Dev, Ditto Eileen. You can put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into a measuring cup, then add milk until it reaches 1 cup. Let it sit for about 5 minutes and it will thicken up to the same consistency as buttermilk.
So, is it 1 tbsp. of vinegar to every 1 cup of milk?
Hi Julie, Put 1 tablespoon vinegar (or lemon juice) in a measuring cup, then add enough milk to get it to measure 1 cup. Let stand for 5 minutes. Just a note – this is just a substitution trick to replace the buttermilk in the recipe in the event you don’t have or can’t find buttermilk, but doesn’t replace the vinegar actually called for in the recipe.
Another option is to keep buttermilk powder around. It keeps forever, and a year after opening. You mix it with water.
may i know the ratio for powdered buttermilk?
This looks so moist and delicious! I have never heard of poke cake before but it’s a genius idea! Thanks :)
Oh my… first blog to read this morning – those photos are so mouthwatering!! Delicious and a must make.
This sounds so neat! I’ve never made a poke cake before!
OH WOW! A whole tin of condensed milk AND cream cheese frosting. this sounds AMAZING!
LOVE poke cakes. I love the huge holes you poked into it – nothing skimpy. For maximum seepage potential! And I love that you’re going to re-do some poke cakes, from scratch. All the ones I see are cake mix and nothing wrong with cake mix, but I also like to reinvent the wheel as often as I can :) Love that this baby was still fresh 10 days later!
Yum! I still haven’t tried a poke cake, but I found this a while ago (I think via Pinterest), and it also from scratch. Chocolate- peanut butter pudding poke cake (right up your alley!). :). http://www.evilshenanigans.com/2012/07/chocolate-peanut-butter-pudding-poke-cake/
Poke cake from scratch? Sign me up!
Yum! My grandma used to do a vanilla poke cake. I bet this is good too
This looks AMAZING! I’ve made your red velvet cupcake recipe before and love it, so I know I’d adore this too!