Mama got a hold of a recipe for a red velvet cheesecake on facebook as a suggestion for her birthday cake. We are not quite sure about its true origin. After reading the two page volume and getting past the first heart attack (this thing takes some work), we also realized that it calls for red food coloring. And Mama does not go for red chemicals in her food. We tried to find some in several whole food markets, but no luck. So we decided to make the red velvet cheesecake - well, not red.
So here goes the masterpiece. Don't try this at home kids. It's ridiculous.
First the cheesecake portion: We preheated the oven to 325 degrees and turned on a kettle of water. We buttered a 9" spring form, turned it around on a parchment paper to trace a circle, cut out the paper, and placed it on the bottom of the form.
We enveloped the form int two layers of aluminum foil and placed the sculpture into a big roasting pan.
Then we mixed up 2 8oz packages of cream cheese, 2/3 cup of sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup sour cream, 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
The mixture went into the form and the oven. The hot water we poured into the bigger roasting pan, about an inch high. We baked this portion for 55 minutes. We let it cool afterwards for an hour before placing into the freezer overnight. We kept the baked cheese in the form for the freezing.
Now the cake portion: The oven was preheated to 350 degrees and two 9" cake forms got buttered and lightly floured.
We mixed up 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 3 tablespoons unsweetened coco powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 cups sunflower oil, 1 cup buttermilk, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and 2 teaspoon white vinegar.
The mixture got divided into the two forms.
We baked the two cakes for 35 minutes.
After we let it cool for 10 minutes, Lily used a knife to loosen the sides.
She flipped over the cakes
and let them rest some more.
The icing: While the cakes were cooling, Lily mixed up 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar,
2 8oz packages of cream cheese, 1/2 cup unsalted butter, and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.
Assembling the art piece: When everything was ready, we got the cheese layer out of the freezer, released the sides with a knife, un-sprung the spring form, took off the bottom, and peeled off the parchment paper.
We shaved a little around the edge of the frozen cheese to get the size fit with the cake layers.
For the icing we first covered the cake with only half of the icing mixture and placed it in the fridge for 30 minutes to let it set. Then we did a second layer. That little trick did wonders. At the end we grated off some snow flakes from a bar of white chocolate.
.
Voila! Happy birthday Mama!
(The cake is delicious by the way. Splendid!)
