RED VELVET CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

In this world, there are many things that goes perfectly together.  Peanut butter and Jelly, burgers and fries, milk and cookies, etc.  Now, I’m going to add one more to that list.  It’s Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting. This cake is great just by itself (Trust me, I tried it.  For the sake of my readers, of course. :)).  Howeveeeerrrrr …..  If you eat it with the frosting, Wowza!!!!  It went from great to “You’re gonna close your eyes, it’s that Delicious”!!!

The cake itself is not very hard to make.  But, it does takes awhile because you have three parts to it.  Make the cake, make the frosting and then assemble.  Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through it.  So, you can do this cake 2 ways.  If you are making it to give to a very lucky person, you can use a cake circle (the cardboard) and put it on your cake turntable.  I was making it for my cousin (I know I’ll get my plate back :)) so I put it right on the cake pedestal.

I made the cake one day ahead and then wrap it with cling wrap.  We want to keep the cake nice and moist so you really want to wrap it tight.

Next you get your equipments in place.  The frosting, the cake, and the cake pedestal.  Now, when you are getting ready to do this, take 3 deep breaths, focus and let’s go!

The first step you do before you put the cake on the pedestal is to smear just about a tablespoon of the frosting in the middle of the pedestal.  This help the cake stay in place when you’re doing the frosting so it doesn’t dance around.  It’s an old baker’s tip and a useful one at that!  After that you put one cake on top.  Now is time to line the sides with parchment paper.  You cut a little piece of parchment and fold it in half.  Tuck it under the cake so that when you frost the cake, it won’t make a mess on the pedestal.  Neat, huh?  You can see how it works on the next picture.

You want to put a big dollop of icing with a serving spoon and then smooth it with your spatula.  Now I made the mistake of using a spatula to take a dollop and then smooth it out.  It turns out, because the cake is so moist, some of the crumbs came off, just like in picture.  But it’s all good.  This is the middle of the cake so I learned my lesson and used a spoon and my spatula.  By the way, just do the top of the first cake.  We’ll do the sides after we put on the second cake.

So when you are done with the middle layer, I have a fun tip for you.  When you want to put on the second cake, instead of putting it right side up, you put the bottom part up.  So the smooth part is on top of the cake, giving you a really leveled cake!  Isn’t it great?  If you are not a great cake leveler (that’s a great title that I don’t have. :)), this is an easy way to make your cake perfectly “level”.

Now here’s the fun part, you just frost away!  You can do the top, the side, but just be very patient with it.  Thus, the 3 deep breaths.  Enjoy it!  Keep going back and smooth it to your heart’s desire.  When you are done with the frosting, slowly take away the parchment paper.  You’ll have a beautiful cake and a clean pedestal.  To make it even more pretty so that everyone wants to eat it, you can even sprinkle the top with the crumbled up top of the cake that you took off, when you level off the cake.

Doesn’t it look so pretty?!  The white and the red is just a great combination.  It’s beautiful for the eyes and it’s delicious for the tummy!! And if you’re wondering what the inside looks like, here is one more picture for you.  I’m not surprised if you’re going to heat up your oven and start baking it!

Tips for making this Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing :

• This cake does take some time.  You might want to make the cake one day ahead and the frost the day of.
• If you like to crumb coat your cake, doubling up the frosting is the way to go.

Happy Baking!!