Red Velvet Cheesecake

I've been sitting here for 15 minutes trying to find the words to describe this little slice of heaven cake. It's just delicious.  Bottom line. It's fabulously decadent and delightfully simple to make.  I adapted this recipe from Southern Living's version that involved hand rolling white chocolate leaves as a garnish - ain't nobody got time for that! And let me just also say, this is the FIRST time I have ever made a cheesecake.  I'm not really sure why.  Everyone always says they are so simple.  I think I was just afraid of over-baking it.

Actually, that's only half true.  The truth of the matter is that I usually make desserts in a mad rush to consume molten chocolate as quickly as possible.  Cheesecakes aren't chocolate.  And they involve refrigeration to set.  Patience is a virtue.  I'm working on it. So here ya go - the semi-homemade version that will impress even the harshest critics. It's the perfect ending to a romantic dinner for two, dinner with the in-laws, or your bestie's birthday.  Do yourself a favor and MAKE THIS CAKE!  Let me know what you think!

By the way, I know the directions are long, but you'll see it's really just chocked full of extra info that I italicized. The regular print contains all of the basics.


What you need:

Red Velvet Cake Mix (I like Duncan Hines)
3 eggs
1 cup water
1/3 cup oil

2 bricks room-temperature cream cheese (16 oz total)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tub cream cheese icing (you can absolutely make your own, but for simplicity's sake I like Betty Crocker)


Mix eggs, water, and oil into your cake and beat on med-high until thick and creamy. (I ALWAYS add a dash of vanilla to any cake mix, as well as about 1/2 tsp of instant coffee grounds to any chocolate cake mix.  Since Red Velvet is actually a chocolate cake - Devil's Food to be exact, hence the "red" and "devil." According to my research the acid in the buttermilk in the original recipes caused the batter to take on a slightly reddish hue. But since we like to go big or go home these days, they have started adding red dye to differentiate the two.  If you don't have a Red Velvet cake mix, you can always use Devil's Food and add a 1 ounce bottle of red food coloring. Of course, you can for-go the extra artifical coloring all together and just use the Devil's Food mix. But I digress......)

Pour the batter into 2 greased 8 inch cake pans (you can use 9 inch, but as cake mixes have become smaller in volume, you really should bite the bullet and get some smaller pans, otherwise you will have 2 very flat cakes - and hey, maybe you're into that sorta thing.)  Bake in preheated oven at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the cake "springs back" when touched. Allow to cool, then remove from pans and refigerate.

For the cheesecake layer, start by melting your chocolate.  I find a double boiler very fickle in melting chocolate, especially such a small amount, so I recommend placing the white chocolate chips into a glass bowl and microwaving at 30 sec intervals, stirring between, until smooth and creamy.  Set aside to slightly cool while you assemble the other ingredients and prepare the pan.

If you have an 8 inch spring form pan, great!  line the bottom with parchment or wax paper, as you wont be using a graham-cracker crust to help get this cheesecake out of the pan.  If you don't have a spring-form, no worries.  Line the inside of one of the pans you used for your red-velvet cake with foil, then line the bottom with parchment or wax, then grease your lined pan. This will enable you to pull the cooled cheesecake out of the pan (foil), and maintain a smooth top and bottom between your layers (paper) You can see that I forgot to do the foil step. I just had to heat the bottom of the cake pan by sliding it around over a burner for a few seconds.  Save yourself the headache. 

Beat cream cheese, then add melted and cooled white chocolate.  Continue to beat and gradually add sugar followed by eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly between each addition.  Add vanilla.  Pour into prepared pan.  Place pan into water bath (I used a 9x13 pan filled about 1/3 with hot water) Bake at 300 for 35 minutes.  DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR! Turn oven off, leaving the cake inside to continue cooking for 25 minutes.  Remove cheesecake and allow to cool and refrigerate.

Stack your cakes up with all of the flat sides toward the center. You may or may not need to level off the rounded part of the bottom cake to help it sit flat.  I like the top cake to be round and full-looking.  If you don't you can level it off as well.  

Smooth the sides of the cheesecake to fill any gaps.

Coat the entire cake with a crumb-layer of icing, then return to the refrigerator for at least 10-15 minutes (hours can pass, that's totally fine).  Be careful not to let any crumbs get into your batch of icing.  You can separate some out if you feel you need to.  I used about 1/4 of my tub. The crumb layer will keep those little specs of red cake from getting into your final layer of icing - it's the secret bakers use to ensure a pretty final product.

Ice the rest of the cake and try not to eat it - yet.