Saturday, December 3, 2011

My Layered Red Velvet w/ Cheese Cake center



Makes a rich 9″ cake
Cheesecake
20 oz full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
I started the cheesecake the day before. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees 
Grease a 9″ springform pan
In the bowl of a mixer, beat the cream cheese on medium until fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until smooth, add salt. Add eggs one at a time, making sure they are combined but not overmixing. Add the sour cream. Stir in flour and gently mix just until combined.
Cut wax paper the size of the springform pan, lay it in the bottom. Pour the batter into the greased pan over the wax paper. Bake until the cheesecake is just set in the middle, about 60 minutes. Run a knife around the sides and let the cheesecake and cool completely. Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the cheesecake and refrigerate overnight.
Red Velvet
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp cocoa powder (add more if you want it to taste more chocolaty)
1 tsp salt
2 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 pint buttermilk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp white distilled vinegar
Red food coloring, as desired
I made the cake the day after I made the cheesecake, so it had rested overnight in the fridge and was sturdy enough to flip.
For the red velvet, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9″ pans.
Stir flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil, buttermilk, vanilla extract, and vinegar until well combined. Add the dry ingredients and as much food coloring as you like. Beat until well combined, about two minutes.
Divide the batter between the two pans. Bake 25-30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans for five minutes, then run a knife around the edges. Invert them onto cooling racks and cool completely. (I like to make the frosting at this point, while the cakes cool down.)
Cream Cheese Frosting
12 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
3 cups 
Beat the cream cheese and butter in an electric mixer until very smooth and lump-free. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts. Then stir in the powdered sugar a cup at a time until very smooth.
Assembling the cake.
Use a cake leveler or serrated knife to level the tops of the red velvet cakes. Put one of the layers, cut-side up and parchment paper removed, on a serving plate. Spread with a very small amount of frosting, just enough to cover the cake in a thin layer.
Take the cheesecake out of the fridge. Open up the springform pan and peel off the plastic wrap. The cake should be pretty sturdy. My cheesecake was still attached to the bottom of the springform pan. I simply used one hand to hold it, and gently flipped it over onto the red velvet. I lifted off the bottom of the springform pan and peeled off the wax paper. Piece of cake.
My cheesecake was wider than the red velvet. I just gently sawed a knife around the edges and trimmed the excess.
Spread another very thin layer of frosting on the top of the cheesecake. Flip the remaining layer of red velvet, cut side down, on top. Peel off the parchment paper.
Use about a third of the cream cheese frosting to cover the whole cake with a crumb coat. Basically, you want to frost the cake with as little frosting as possible, picking up all the red crumbs and sealing the cake. Refrigerate the cake for half an hour, or until the crumb coat is hardened.
Then frost the cake with the rest of the cream cheese frosting. I decorated mine with sprinkles.
Keep the cake in the fridge. It can stand at room temperature about half an hour before serving, if necessary.
Here is where you can find the original recipe, I adapted the recipe to how I would prefer it to be!

WHat do you think?

Does anyone like the name Atlyse, Atlyce, Atlys (Atlas) for a girls name... I am in love with it.... (this is not an announcement!)

My Birthday Weekend!

Some of you may know that I hate my birthday! I don't post it on face book, most years I forget it is here. I have even asked someone the date before on my birthday. 'D' LOVES his birthday and thinks it should be celebrated all month long..... SO he thinks mine should be too. So here is my birthday story..... minus protesting drama and other obstacles. We had to pay a few extra bills and bought i-phones at the same time.  There wasn't much money in the bank to go away someone! I wanted that.....hide from the world! Here is what we did for the weekend!
After a few tears and protesting.... here we go.
Derrick planned all of the following and despite his normal....stick to a schedule..... He let me dottle between planned activities!

Friday.....On the back of Weber State's sports tickets there is a deal that no one ever uses. $75 for dinner and a hotel stay at the Marriot.... the Marriot is not far from our house, it was still fun! And they let us get whatever we wanted off the menu.... that was $75 alone! They supposedly let him check in at like 1pm and he had roses and chocolate for me (not a chocolate fan but what else goes with roses!)

Rib Eye Stake with Clam Chowder Soup!

Meatloaf w/ yummy cheesy potato things!


Saturday....... Check out was at noon.... I slept in til humanly possible! Off shopping we went! I wanted to make my own birthday cake but I needed the right things! We went to kitchen Needs, bought a few things! Went to Macey's, bought ingredients. My favorite part of the day..... we stopped at our favorite ghetto thrift store.... We have one bowling ball that is Derrick's, I wanted one too! We found another one for $4 and it was 8lbs and the finger holes were big enough for my chubby fingers! I have also been dying for my own hockey skates..... Yep they had a boys size there that fit me! YIPPIE Hockey skates are really wide so they fit my feet comfortably! They were only $4 too! SCORE! HB to me! We finally made it to Joann Fabrics to buy me a few things to make my cake. My parents gave me birthday money and I spent it on cake stuff...
We took all of our stuff home and Derrick took me ice skating. Somehow I fell over my feet down the stairs outside the ice skating rink..... I have no idea how I did this but I just laid upside down these stairs. Derrick didn't even notice until I was crying limping towards him... My ankle killed! He insisted we still skate because I had new hockey skates.... I didn't last long!
The front of my ankle actual got scraped on the step down from where I tripped... I had to be on my tummy for this to happen! 




We went to the Junction and played mini golf, bowled with my new ball, bumper cars, and ate these yummy cinnamon and sugar bread twists on a stick! What a fun night!
Geez.... no wonder my back hurt later... Holy bad posture!
Seriously way FUN!

I broke 50! j/k It has been a while!

My new ball and Derrick's Dexter's Lab..... both thrift store finds! 




D's parents were going to take us out to dinner but they had a wedding reception to go to, so they gave us money to go out to eat! Thank you Good Wood for delicious B-day dessert!

When we got home I made the first half of my cake.... I was making a layed Red Velvet cake with cheese cake in the center! YUM YUM! I made the cheese cake, then Sunday I made the red velvet and then put them both together!


Should have used a little more red dye!
My first REAL cake..... 
Sunday........... My sister Laura made me a yummy dinner when we got home from church.
My birthday weekend/week was wonderful! My parents took us out to eat Monday night too! 
Thanks to my SWEETHEART I had a wonderful birthday! 

I have an idea for next year.... D's birthday is in January mine in November, is it a bad idea to have something fun together in December? December is also our half-annaversery too... maybe we could go out of town... Still have cake and a present on our actual birthday.... Doing something big twice within 2 1/2 months seems a little impractical.. Any thoughts.


Hemming Pant TRICK

It is no surprise to anyone that Derrick and I are SHORT! The only thing that bothers me......my pants are always tooo long! It is annoying! I hate to cut them off and sew them under; it looks extremely nerdy and I would rather have them long. A secret was given to me.... here is the picture process of hemming pants... in a not so nerdy fashion! 

Have them try on the pants and roll up to right lenght
I measured and pinned all the way around to make sure they were even! Don't mind the yard stick! I couldn't find sewing one! 


Put it on the inside and adjust....

Line where the new desired length with the old yellow line (Whatever you measured, it will be a little longer because on you will always line it up to the yellow line to make it an optical illusion! Be careful with your pants that have an inch of fabric in the original hemline!)

Sew as close to the edge as possible.... doesn't have to be perfect! Sew a little slower over seems to make sure your needle doesn't break and make sure you have a new, durable needle! At some points you may be sewing over 4 + layers at a time! 

Repeat on the other leg and WAAALAA! You can't tell at all from far away!

Barely can tell close up! 
Some of Derrick's pants we hemmed 9 inches! OH my gosh! We did not buy most of them that long, some were given to us and some pants were on sale!

Hope this helps others out there! And if you mess up..... just unpick and try again! I have cut jeans too short and I had to make them into shorts! Oh, I forgot, I would add one more step! Sew up both the inner and outer seems from the bottom of pants until the material inside is sewn to the seem. This ensures the extra fabric stays in place and doesn't fall out! This was a trail and error process! Never actually seen this done before! 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Day 8 in NewElgland


Day 8 lake w
We woke up at packed the van at a descent hour. Drove around Portland one last time and got on the road south. Last minute we remembered that several people told us to go to Lake Winnipesaukee and Wolfeboro. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE! What a cute little town! What I saw there was the climax of the whole trip. That was the perfect fall view I had been waiting for. Oh my gosh... Stunning and amazing! Cute shops and really no time to stay long. We headed directly for the airport. And here I am writing the my last words on a 7 hour travel home! The more places I travel the more time I am reassured that God is good, no GREAT! He knows all of his people and I see his hand everywhere I look! We headed to the Airport just as our internet ran out. My mom and dad picked us up from the airport and you should have seen all of us crammed in that vehicle with all of our luggage. We were ready to be home!

A few interesting facts
4000 miles in the air
1240 miles driven
160 miles on train
for a grand total of 5400 miles in 8 days! 








This was a grand trip and I look forward to our next one over Spring Break! Any guesses of where we are planning on going? Maybe Ill find a surprise if anyone can guess it correctly!


Day 7 in NewEngland


Day 7 Portland
We woke up a little bit later then normal.. Although I think I have found many excuses to sleep in. And when I say we, I mean me. I have a hard time getting up early, in my defense i was always up to eat breakfast and that was before 9. In all honesty, Jenn and Derrick got to take many cat-naps along the road... ME? I drove the whole time! Today we stopped and took beautiful pictures of many light houses, walked down-town Portland or what they call Old Port. It was fun to shop and see the sights. There is something about the way this town felt. I loved it and told Derrick I wanted to move there! Oh my gosh do I want to move there! We drove to Freeport, Me where the famous LL Bean in located. This little town is a resort shopping town and that was pretty fun. Once the street was full of Halloween kids we decided to leave and go back to our hotel. We were suppose to drive up and stay with Derrick's aunt but something happened and we went back to the same hotel. It was really nice and a great price! What a day, I love, seriously love it here! Derrick and I talked about how we could move here, even if he finished his degree here or something! We brought everything out of the car and needed to pack all of the things we bought (Jenn bought). Oh my gosh I was so embarrassed to how much stuff we had, two carts full. Where in the world would we find room to fly this stuff home.

I wanted to go here sooo bad, no ferry over there any more. LONG drive

mid air!




Yes, a real piece of the Berlin Wall


No idea what this is suppose to say! lol

old fort, still owned by military





Freeport Maine! AWESOM!


Lots of shopping!

This seemed like a problem.... how to get it all home!

Master Packers! We figured it all out!