This Valentine's Day I made a cake! A Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake with Cream Cheese frosting and Symphony bar shavings on top to be exact. Yum yum yum yum.
I made the cheese cake first (it had to be done a day in advanced because it needed to chill overnight)
3/4 cups sugar
2 1/2 bars cream cheese (20 oz)
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
mix everything together, adding one ingredient at a time until fluffy.
Cut a piece of parchment paper to match the size of the bottom of the springform pan,place that in, and pour it all in.
For the water bath, I didn't want to use aluminum foil since the kind I have is pre-cut, and there would be seams. So I used an oven bag! It worked really well. Just put the springform pan in the oven bag and cut the oven bag sides down to the height of the pan.
Place the pan in a pot and fill that with boiling water that comes halfway up the cheesecake pan.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 325* F.
after it's done, let it cool for 20 minutes, cut around the edges. cool all the way, and put it covered into the fridge over night.
While that was baking I decided to make the Red Velvet Cake.
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 TBSP cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 c. buttermilk
2 TBSP (1 oz.) red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. white distilled vinegar
Sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients in separate bowl. and then gradually mix dry in with wet. (i actually didn't have that much red food coloring, so mine didn't turn out very red.)
Grease and flower two 9" round cake pans, and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Bake at 350* F for 25-30 minutes, or until done. After I take my cake out I push it down with a CLEAN towel to flatten the cake so I don't have to trim!
Let the cakes cool, and put in the fridge to keep until tomorrow (if you make cake the same day as cheesecake)
Cream Cheese Frosting
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
12 oz. butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. confectioners' sugar
Mix everything except sugar together. Then, add sugar and mix until fluffy.
PUT YOUR CAKE TOGETHER!
make a cheesecake shake or something with the left over cheesecake trimmings! (or you can just eat it plane like me)
Store your cake in the fridge.
Also, If you were wondering how I did the heart... I just cut out a piece of paper in the shape of a heart. placed the paper on my frosted cake, grated symphony bar over the top, and then took the paper off after. I had left over frosting so I just spooned some more into the heart and made it higher up.
I found this recipe at: http://www.tasteandtellblog.com/2011/02/red-velvet-week-red-velvet-cheesecake.html
