Splitting, filling, and crumb coating, are all the basic steps to creating a layered cake just before you ice it. The crumb coat is a technique used to trap free crumbs in a thin layer of icing. That way, when you finally ice the cake, no crumbs will show up in your beautiful icing!

Here’s a video on these basic steps. It took FOREVER for me to edit, but it was so worth it. I used a better camera than my usual mobile phone video camera, and so I’m quite pleased with how this video looks!

Please leave a comment and share any thoughts!

Here’s the recipe we used for this cake:

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

-2 tablespoons cocoa powder mixed with sifted with 1/8 tsp of baking powder

-2 tablespoons water mixed with 4-5 drops of red gel food color

-2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

-1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

-2 large eggs

-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

-1 cup buttermilk

-1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

-1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix the cocoa/baking powder with the red gel solution to a nice red paste, and set aside. Sift together the flour and salt in a bowl, and set aside. Put the butter in a mixing bowl. In the mixer, slowly add the sugar to the butter on medium high. Cream together the butter and sugar on Medium High for 5 minutes in a mixer until it’s a light color, fluffy, and well-incorporated. Add the eggs at medium speed, one at a time, and scrape between each addition.

Add your vanilla extract to your buttermilk. Next, with the mixer on LOW, alternate adding about a third of the flour mixture, followed by adding 1/2 of your buttermilk to the mixture, and so on, until all of the buttermilk and flour mixture is in the mixer. Then pour in your red cocoa paste into the mixture.

In a small cup, add the vinegar to the baking soda, let bubble, and fold into the batter. Fill two 8″ cake pans evenly with batter.

Put in the oven for about 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees, or until a toothpick which is stuck in the center of the cake, comes out clean. You make also check for doneness using a flat hand on the top of the cake. The cake should bounce back. (Be careful; it’s hot!)

Cream Cheese Filling (can be used for the crumb coat as well):

16 ounces cream cheese, cool but soft

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

1 1/2 (360 ml) cups heavy cream

With a hand mixer, mix all of the cream cheese with the vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons from your heavy cream. Add the confectioner’s sugar and mix until smooth. Refrigerate for 7-10 minutes to cool and harden up the mixture a bit. In another bowl, whip the heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks. Fold in the whipped cream in two or three parts to lighten up your cream cheese mixture.