FAVE Cake. Ever.

Remember the red velvet cheesecake I raved about a while back? 

And how I found the recipe on this blog and just had to try my hand at it??

Well, I recreated it last week. With a couple modifications. And a slightly sloppier assembly of the layers. Annnd maybe a few hundred extra calories.

But let me tell ya... it was worth it!

Purple is Katie's favorite ;)

See? Messier than last time. But somehow tasted even better!

We missed a couple of friends' birthdays while we were home in Ohio, so this was a delayed birthday celebration of sorts. Or maybe it was just a good excuse to have this cake again... or a good way to cure our cabin fever after a week of being stuck in our respective apartments waiting for the snow and ice to melt in Atlanta. Whatever the reason, I made the cake and it was a hit!

Bday girl Katie - who has been requesting this as her birthday cake since last February!

Yum :)

Happy {belated} 24th birthdays, girls!

Here is what was different about this masterpiece on my second go around:

1) I used (gasp) boxed red velvet cake. But who cares - it was so moist and delish!

2) I totally changed the icing.

Red velvet cake from a box is a guaranteed perfect consistency, color and moist-ness. Since the cheesecake flavor is what (in my opinion) makes or breaks this cake, the red velvet layers were really secondary... so no big deal using a box mix for it. The icing last time was way cream cheese-y. Like overly cream cheese flavored - so it overpowered the other yummy flavors in the cake. Not to mention, it was impossible to frost on smoothly. So this time I did some Googling and found the perfect cream cheese buttercream recipe to work from. I ended up adapting it by adding some extra confectioners sugar, milk, and even a little flour just to get the consistency right, but it was largely the same as this recipe. Can't go wrong w/ Martha :)

The original red velvet cheesecake recipe I used can be found on Judy's blog, along with about a million other amazing recipes that I am itching to try! I duplicated her White Chocolate Cheesecake recipe exactly for the middle layer, and it was perfection.

Thankfully, birthdays only come once a year. I think I see some red velvet cheesecake dimples forming on my thighs already... but lucky for us, we have lots of friends to share my high cal hobbies with! Several pieces of this dessert were packed up in tupperware and delivered to friends for them to enjoy (and subsequently run off). 

I've already got Andrew's 24th birthday cake picked out {in fact, it was decided on months ago haha} for February, so be sure to check it out after V-day :)