Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

It was made... it was delicious... now it's gone.

I know last time I shared the results of my snow recipe at the end of the month with all the others, but I wanted to go ahead and do a write up about this cake because it was pretty darn great! Plus I took several pictures of the process, which makes it more fun. I brought it to work on Valentine's Day (aren't I sweet?!?) and received lots of good responses-- "Amazing!" - "Very Good!" - "Bravo!" To me, that means it was a success. I enjoyed this creation as it was different to combine cake and cheesecake into one dessert. I preferred it the day after it had been made and had a chance to meld together. The cake was a bit dry on the first day in my opinion, but after it sat in the fridge over night, sandwiching the cheesecake and being surrounded by cream cheese frosting it transformed into something so much more!

To start, you make the cheesecake-- 20 oz. of cream cheese!


Here I am zesting a lemon and getting some fresh juice for the cheesecake. This smelled great!


This is only the second cheesecake I've made. But this time I was prepared with my new spring form pan!! I got it for half price at Michael's. *A note: I really wish no-stick meant NO-STICK! I was supposed to use parchment paper for the bottom of the pan, since I didn't have any and didn't want to use wax paper since it melts in the oven, I didn't use anything. Now, I may not have given it enough time to cool and freeze, but it definitely stuck to the pan and I kind of had to reform the cheesecake layer on the cake. I believe I will be buying the parchment paper in the future. Here's the cheesecake as it heads into the oven to bake...


Next up, while the cheesecake was baking, I started sifting all my dry ingredients for the red velvet cake.


Last year I made a green velvet cake, but this was my first red one. I think they are so fun to watch as you put together. It's like a science experiement! Cool huh?!?


Ouch! Sometimes there is danger in the kitchen...


Ha ha! Just kidding. It's red food coloring... but I couldn't resist, doesn't it look pretty real?

Moving on... Add the red food coloring to the wet ingredients, a lot of it! I actually didn't have as much as it called for (about half), but it was still nice and red enough for me.

Mix, mix, mix!

What a beautiful color! And about to head into the oven to bake!


The baked cheesecake. Not sure what, but I think I must have done something wrong. It was kind of poofy when I removed it from the oven, by the time it had cooled and frozen it was about half it's height. Why? Maybe I'll need to do a little research. I've heard cheesecakes are finnicky, but I will definitely keep trying, they are so delicious!


After the cakes have cooled, you start assembling, layer one


Add cheesecake, and second layer of cake


Then-- frost it! The frosting was a little "soupier" than I expected, but it stayed on surprisingly well and was a great complement to the cake. I put on a crumb coat and then another layer over that.


Another success in my book. I may try to figure out what to do differently about the cheesecake, but other than that, I'd be willing to make it all over again. Now I have to figure out what to do with the extra cake I have from when I leveled the cakes and the leftover cream cheese frosting... I might see cake balls in my near future.

To life... full of red velvet cheesecake cake!