Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

Recently, I have become obsessed with the idea of filling moist, delicious cakes with cheesecake.   I feel that this artery clogging, absolute indulgent genre of dessert is 100% in the spirit of cheat day and therefore warrants my very first post.  (And yes, I'm now giving cheesecake filled cakes their own genre- they are that good.)

This all stemmed from the wedding of my two dear friends.  The groom asked for their wedding cake to be red velvet cheesecake flavored.  Luckily for me, I'm great friends with the amazingly talented baker (Michelle)  who ultimately made this for them, and I got to hear firsthand all of her ideas on how to construct it and what recipes would be used.  The wedding cake she made was hands down the best cake I've ever eaten, to date.

I decided to try my hand at one- using this groom’s wonderful idea as well as some of the Michelle's recipes, and some taht I found on own!  While I can’t take credit for this concoction, I can most certainly share with you my take on the recipe!

Also, I apologize for this post lacking pictures of construction.  I made the cake a while ago, before I decided to start a blog.  However, I do solemnly swear to be better about this in the future.  Here are the recipes I used, their sources, and my construction notes along the way.

One thing I will note as I made this cake- it turns out best, and is least stressful, if you make it over the span of several evenings!

Step One: Bake the Cake! 
Recipe Adapted from: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/too-much-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx
I did this on Tuesday evening, to be served on Friday

Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package of Red Velvet Cake Mix (I used Duncan Hines)
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant white chocolate pudding mix
1 (8 ounce) container of full fat sour cream (I used Daisy)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs 1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp real vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees  

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, or your trusty stand mixer. 
Pour your batter into two greased 9inch round pans. 
Bake as directed on your box mix.

Here’s the trick: Once the cakes are cooled, cut two parchment paper rounds for each and sandwich the cake between then.  Then wrap the cakes in saran wrap.   Then wrap them again.  Then slip them into a gallon zip lock freezer bag and suck the air out.  Then throw them in the freezer.  I don’t know why or how- but this changes the texture of the cake for the better.  (Thanks for this tip, Michelle!)  Just remember to take the cakes out and let them defrost in the fridge the day before you assemble!!

Step Two: Bake the Cheesecake! 
Recipe from:  The Joy of Cooking, page 980
I did this on Wednesday evening

(Note, if making this on it’s own- which is AWESOME- you must use their shortbread crust.  It’s freaking incredible)

Ingredients (all at room temperature)

2.5 lbs (five 8 ounce packages) Philadelphia Cream Cheese
(It’s something about the water content of cream cheese- but this brand is particularly amazing and  always works out great in my recipes)

1 ¾ cup Sugar

3 tbsp flour

½ tsp vanilla

5 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

½ cup heavy cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Beat cream cheese until creamy, about 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go.

Gradually add the sugar and flour and beat until smooth and creamy (another 1-2 min.)

Beat in your vanilla (the recipe calls for 1 tsp of lemon zest here which I omitted)
Beat in the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, until just incorporated (making sure to scrape the sides and beaters as you go.)

Finally, on low speed beat in the cream.

Pour into a 9 inch spring form pan fitted with a parchment paper round in the bottom.

Bake at 500 for 15 min and then lower the oven temp to 200 for 1 more hour.  Turn off the oven and prop it open with a wooden spoon to ensure it doesn’t crack!

Side note: This turned out a bit brown in my current oven, but is turned out great when I've made it at my parents house.  You’ll have to experiment with your oven.  Next time at home I’m going to drop the oven temp from 500 to 200 degrees after about 5 minutes.  The great thing about this recipe is you can just scrape off the brown sections- it doesn’t have to look perfect!  It’s inside of a cake!!

Step Three: Frosting and Assembly!  
I did this on Thursday

First, make a double batch of my favorite cream cheese frosting, found here:
http://cheatday.blogspot.com/2011/03/best-cream-cheese-frosting.html

Next, prep the cheesecake.  I simply leveled it with a large chefs knife, and cut off the edges that were brown.  This made an absolute mess in my kitchen.  A very delicious mess.

Finally- it’s time to layer!  Remove the parchment from one of your cake rounds, and flip it onto your cake stand.  Put a layer of cream cheese frosting on the cake.  Then, flip the cheesecake on top.  Here, you may choose to cut off any parts of the cheesecake that are too brown.  Mine was actually fine.  After your cheesecake is stacked and ready, put another layer of frosting.  Finally, flip the last red velvet cake on top and you are ready to frost the whole shebang!  I didn’t do a crumb coat- it turned out fine without- but you most certainly could!  Finally, I shaved some white chocolate (read: old almond bark I had in my cabinet) for a little bit of style, and I was done!  I chilled this sucker and served it the next day- to many oohs and ahhs

UPDATE:  So I made this recipe again for Christmas, and took a few pictures along the way.  Enjoy!