This Red Velvet Cake Doctored Cake Mix Recipe belongs in your recipe file of favorites! It is amazingly moist, delicious, and has just the right amount of chocolate flavor.

Add a little cream cheese frosting, and it is pure heaven! It's no wonder that Red Velvet Cake has long been a beloved classic southern dessert!

The BEST doctored Red Velvet Cake recipe by MyCakeSchool.com! Tastes like a scratch recipe and is super moist and flavorful! MyCakeSchool.com.

We have a Scratch Red Velvet Cake recipe that we love, but we were determined to find a doctored cake mix version that we loved just as much. This is it!

When I brought this leftover doctored cake mix version of Red Velvet Cake home to my family, they absolutely loved it, and couldn't believe that it wasn't a scratch recipe. This cake disappeared in record time!

We have experimented with using actual Red Velvet Cake Mix in doctored mix recipes in the past and were never happy with the flavor. This is why we chose to use Yellow Cake Mix as the base, and simply add red coloring.

**A note about the color: this Red Velvet Cake is not a vibrant red...it is more of a "chocolate red". The lighting in the photo above makes it look a bit more red. Red Velvet cakes come in all shades of red depending on how much cocoa the recipe calls for, and of course the amount of red coloring used.

We loved the chocolate flavor of this cake so much that we didn't want to remove any of the cocoa. However, if you'd prefer a deeper red, you can remove some of the cocoa and add more coloring. It's up to you! (But we love it just as it is!)

Red Velvet Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting go hand in hand. You can find our favorite Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe here!: Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting.

The BEST doctored cake mix Red Velvet Cake recipe! Super moist, delicious, and fantastic with Cream Cheese Frosting! MyCakeSchool.com.

Red Velvet Cake - Doctored Cake Mix Recipe

This delicious Red Velvet Cake is super moist and has just the right amount of chocolate flavor. I love red velvet year-round, but especially for Christmas and winter gatherings!

Ingredients

1 box yellow cake mix, sifted (15.25 box mix) plus 6 Tablespoons (45g) flour ( I used Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Mix)
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
5 Tablespoons (24g) unsweetened cocoa powder ( I sift the cocoa , then measure or weight
½ cup (107g) vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
½ cup (121g) milk
1 cup (242g) sour cream
2 Tablespoons (24g) red food coloring ( if you want a brighter red color to your cake, add 3 Tablespoons)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease and flour 2 eight inch round pans

In the bowl of your mixer, place the cake mix plus flour, sugar, sifted cocoa. Whisk to blend these ingredients together. Then add all the remaining ingredients.

Begin mixing on low speed, increasing to medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Beat at medium speed for 1 more minute (longer if using a hand mixer.

Pour into prepared pans and bake for 30 - 35 minutes (check at 30 minutes). The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean or with a just a few crumbs attached. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes then turn out.

Makes 6 ¼ cups batter

Works well for cupcakes

We frosted with our Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

*You may like to try our fantastic Red Velvet Cake recipe from scratch as we mentioned above! Print this one out for later: Delicious Red Velvet Cake from Scratch

Don't forget to check out our full collection of favorite cake and frosting recipes in our Recipes Section! Or, for free, fun, and simple cake decorating tutorials, don't miss our Free Cake Tutorials Section!

Thanks for stopping by!

153 Comments

Can you use a red velvet box cake and doctrine it, instead of the yellow

Debra says:

December 17, 2023 at 5:37 pm

Can white cake mix be used in place of yellow? Thank you!!

Reply
1. Teri says:
  
  December 18, 2024 at 11:23 pm
  
  I'd like to know this too...?
2. Melissa Diamond says:
  
  December 19, 2024 at 10:33 am
  
  Hi Debra- I'm sorry we missed your question- I don't see why not!

What flour did you add? AP, SR, or cake?

Melissa Diamond says:

February 11, 2023 at 11:15 pm

Hi Traci, sorry that we didn't specify- All Purpose

Reply

My go to recipe and always gets rave reviews. I usually do larger cakes and double this recipe in one bowl and make again to obtain as much batter as needed. It is far more dependable than a scratch recipe and so moist and delicious...thank you so much for your recipe.

Melissa Diamond says:

February 21, 2023 at 11:20 pm

Thanks so much for your feedback Bill! We are happy to hear it! ;0)

Reply

About how many cupcakes does this make?

Melissa Diamond says:

April 2, 2023 at 9:34 pm

Hi Vicki, it makes around 6 1/4 cups of batter and so that should give you approximately 25 cupcakes (about 1/4 cup batter per cupcake).

Reply
1. Vicki says:
  
  April 6, 2023 at 10:48 am
  
  Thank you!

What food coloring are you using? Gel or liquid?

BeBe says:

May 30, 2023 at 10:10 pm

Hi Sue, For the Red Velvet Cake we use liquid food coloring. I hope you will enjoy the recipe.

Reply

can I use red velvet emulsion?

Can I make it in a bunt pan?

Can you use a Red Velvet cake mix?

Hi,
I am new to your site and I have a couple of questions I need to ask. I need to know if it will make a difference if my is a sugar-free yellow cake and instead of using the red dye can I use the red powder? I don’t even know if the powder stuff works, but if you know, I’m a be really glad to know about it, but I’m meantime I’m going to make yours like it is and try it. I’m sure it’s gonna be good, but they’re gonna take the red dye off the market soon so hopefully this other stuff will work but for now I’ll use the red dye.

Hi,
I forgot to also ask why the recipe doesn’t call for vinegar. Hope you can help. Sorry I’m so full of questions. I am an avid baker. Where I used to live in a senior community and they called me the cupcake queen. lol. I also made cheesecakes. I find I still learning even at 76. I have red some of your recipes and they all look so good.
Thank you
Patti