Raven’s Purple Velvet Super Bowl Bundt Cake

The Ravens have made it to the Super Bowl! While I am and always will be a Giants fan, I live in Baltimore, so this is pretty exciting. The entire city has turned purple for the big game. 

It is like a purple haze descended down on the city straight from Jimi Hendrix himself. 

It is like Prince in 1984 all over the place... only more sporty and with Ravens instead of doves. But you know what I am trying to say. 

As one fellow expat New Yorker put it, it looks like Barney threw up all over this city. 

Everyone is wearing purple. Homes are adorned with purple lights. Cars race by sporting Raven’s flags. Our local Trader Joe's was pushing the blueberry-coated brie because, well, despite its name, it looks purple. The lady at Nordstroms had purple finger nails. It was a little overwhelming, truth-be-told. 

Despite lacking the native Baltimorian obsession, it has been hard not to get into the spirit of the moment, and so we decided to host a Super Bowl party for all of our other non-Baltimore-native friends who wanted to watch the game but avoid the ultra-intensity of what would be happening in most living rooms across the city. I myself hoped the Ravens would win, but, if I'm honest, I was far more into my purple themed party than I was the football game.

Indulging in purple themed food, I decided to make Purple Cabbage Slaw to go with our Buffalo Chicken Sliders. And I pickled some red onions, but those came out more fuchsia than purple. I also bought some grape Jello and made some purple Jello-shots, but I couldn’t leave it there. Too obvious. Too predictable. 


My true purple centerpiece, I decided, would be a purple velvet cake. Why not? The truth about red velvet—and this is no secret—is that it’s purely red food coloring that gives the cake it’s color. Therefore, it follows, that “velvet cake” could really come in any color we want. And I wanted purple. Deep, rich, velvety purple. 

Because I wanted to show off the purple color of the cake, I decided on a Bundt cake with a drizzled frosting and a crumb topping, giving the cake maximum purple exposure. This recipe was incredibly good. I mean, red velvet, despite the hype, isn’t always moist or tasty enough. This was both. It was incredible. Hubby took some to work with him on Monday and his co-workers raved about it and promptly finished it off. I highly recommend using this recipe to make any color cake your heart desires.

Raven’s Purple Velvet Super Bowl Bundt Cake

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cups oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

Purple gel food coloring

Prep work:

First, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Grease a Bundt pan really well. Pull the butter and cream cheese out of the fridge so that they begin to soften for later use. Now, for the crumble garnish, you are going to want to put one cupcake liner in a cupcake tin. Fill the remaining cupcake spaces with a little water so that your pan doesn’t burn. Alternatively, you could use a large ramekin. You want something deep that gives you ample cake insides; the outer crust isn’t as good for the crumble as the inside is.

Ok, so done with prep work. Now, get out your stand mixer. If you don’t have one go buy one. Seriously, what are you doing?! Ok fine, you can use a hand mixer but it’s not as good.

Anyway, beat your eggs in a larger mixing bowl with a fork and then dump them into your mixer’s bowl. Add buttermilk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Using the whisk attachment, whisk these ingredients together on low.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder.) Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on medium speed until well combined. Add your gel food coloring. You can use regular food coloring but gel will give you much better colors. To get the deep purple, I used a large amount of purple gel food dye and I added a bit of red and a bit of blue as well, until I got the perfect shade of Raven’s purple I was looking for. You are just going to have to experiment and eyeball it. Remember, it gets darker when baked, as you can see in the difference between my batter and my finished cake.

Fill your cupcake liner half full with batter, then pour the rest of the batter into your greased Bundt pan. Take the cupcake out of the over after 20-25 minutes and let the bake the cake for a total of 50-55 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and turn out, upside onto the plate or platter you wish to serve the cake on.

While the cake is baking, make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

An 8 oz. package of cream cheese

1/2 cup unsalted butter

4 -6 cups confectioners' sugar (depending on sweetness desired)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

Mix the softened cream cheese and butter in mixing bowl with a hand mixer. Slowly add the powdered sugar, followed by the vanilla and milk. Adjust amount of milk until the frosting is a pourable consistency. Leave out until cake is cooled and ready to be decorated.

In the mean time, take your cupcake and, using clean hands, turn it into crumble. Don’t over molest the cupcake; crumble it just enough. Use your judgment.

Once the cake has cooled completely, pour the frosting over cooled cake, making sure to be as even as possible, while allowing for larger drips here and there. Next, sprinkle your crumbs on top of the cake. Then clean up the plate so that the cake is ready to serve. I used a pastry brush to dust all the loose crumbs off, but as you can see, they didn't all make it off the plate. I decided to embrace this imperfection and act as if it were on purpose.