Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

A mix.

I've finally figured out how to make a decent red velvet cake and the secret is in... the mix.

:)

 Now you  purists may contend my error, but... I've tried so many stinkin' red velvet recipes and none of them came out as nicely as this. And did I mention it was easy???  And that all the grown ups here loved it? And the kids, too? Who else do I need to impress, right?  So follow the easy-peasy mix directions and make the cake... I used two 9" pans to get four layers for added cream cheese frosting goodness.  :) A cake's sole purpose in life should be to hold frosting. Yes, this is an ultimate Ruthy truism.

Bake as directed... note the reddish color? The camera did not do it justice, and we're not going to think about how much red dye #5 or 7 or 2 is in this baby, right? We're going for looks... and taste. Mostly taste because a lot of good looking baked goods taste like cardboard these days. We don't do cardboard in the cafe, no sirree, Bub!

 Cake is baked... It had a couple of cutesie, interesting bubbles come up on the top, very old fashioned. It turned out of the pans beautifully, did it not?  And note the package of Philadelphia cream cheese, watching... awaiting its turn in the mixer. Did you know that this cheese was developed in Philadelphia, New York (in the North Country) not Philadephia, PA?  Ruthy factoid #714.

Frosting ingredients!!!! OH. YAY!!!!

8 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. butter
6 cups Confectioners/powdered/10X sugar, name of your choosing
3 tsp. vanilla

Cream softened cream cheese and butter together. Beat in sugar, one cup at a time. Add vanilla. Whip on high speed for about 4 minutes until thick and happy. You'll know the frosting is happy by the smile you get when you take a taste. Your smile makes the frosting VERY HAPPY.

 Now... slice the cakes in half to make four thinner layers.  Have a large cake plate ready for layer #1:

Spread icing across surface of cake. We don't care if the icing picks up red crumbs HERE... they're hidden. On the top and sides we care. Really. Truly. But I'm ahead of myself. Place second layer on first, repeat. And then keep doing that until top layer is in place. Go, go, go!!!!

 As the cake settled, I noticed the top was bulging just a little so I used my handy dandy bread knife and evened the top of the cake off by removing the thin slice you see above and putting it on a "come and get it" plate...  It's gone now, so clearly, someone got it!!!  Bye-bye, little cake!

Here's a Ruthy frosting tip:  Use a thin layer of frosting to GLUE CRUMBS to the CAKE... It works like magic. I take a spatula and press frosting along all sides of the cake. Notice the crumbs shining through? They're about to disappear because they're trapped in frosting like and evil dictator's take over the cosmic world of cake crumbs dastardly plan!!!!  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now... gently smooth large dollops of frosting around sides of cake working from one side to the other, and never going back the original way!!!  So if you start on the right, keep rotating your plate in one direction to frost. This keeps your knife/spatula from picking up crumbs and plunking them down in the finished frosting layer...

On the top, apply several spoons full or spatula plops of frosting in the middle of the cake and spread gently toward edges... See below? No crumbs. You've locked them in and they CANNOT ESCAPE. Well, they can if you let kids help, but we don't care about crumbs if kids help because we like kids a lot, right?

Now you use the exact same technique for the sides, starting at one point and working your way around... The sides are a tiny bit trickier but while you pressed the initial trapping frosting into the cake to lock in Mr. and Mrs. Crumb and all their baby Crumbs?  Here you use a light touch, like painting a wall.

And there we have the finished product!!!  Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting for the crew watching the ACFW Awards Gala on Saturday night... in our jammies!!!

Suh----Weeeet!