Origin: During the reign of Emperor Claudias II, he obligated young knights and soldiers to leave their families for long battles. To ensure success, the Emperor commanded that all marriages be banned, allowing for the soldiers to focus more on the battle than their families at home. Not a believer in such tyranny, Roman Priest Valentine secretly married young couples. He continued the Christian ceremony until the Emperor became aware and ordered his imprisonment. While in jail, he was visited by many of the young couples he had married, whom brought flowers as a show of appreciation to the Priest. He also fell in love with the daughter of Roman Judge Asterius, who was prayed and healed by Saint Valentine. Right before his execution, on February 14th, he wrote a letter to his lover, with the famous line, "from your Valentine".
The memory of St. Valentine lives on in our annual celebration on February 14th. People who celebrates this holiday typically show their love through flowers, hearts, and cards with the words "from your Valentine". For some, it may not be the most significant of days, almost to the point of detesting, but for others, they share love and happiness with their significant other.
This year, I had seen many anti-Valentine's Day Meme on the internet, but you can't deny the fact that you get a ton of candy this time of year and all the cute holiday dessert ideas. I tested many different kinds of Valentine's Day confections, and I found the most success with the "Red Velvet Cheesecake". I first got the idea from my sister, who had made the recipe and posted on her blog Sweet Tooth Lulu. After a few tweaks for the Diner, I made them both in cake form and cupcake form. I couldn't keep them in the case! Hopefully everyone can smile about this recipe, enjoying every morsel, whether with a significant other or with your favorite spoon and comfy sweater.
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| Cupcake, my cupcake, so red and so luscious |
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| The inside look of the decadence |
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| And we all thought we were going on a diet haha |
RED VELVET CHEESECAKE
10" cake or 12 large cupcakes (cupcake recipe will be in italicize)
Ingredients:
Cake:
1 Box of Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cheese Cake (or use the Swans Down Red Velvet Cake Recipe*)
*One of my favorite recipes for cake. Use it for any other recipes calling for Red Velvet Cake
Cheesecake: (all ingredients room temperature)
20 oz Cream Cheese
1 1/4 cups Sour Cream
1 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup Heavy Cream
Topping:
8 oz Cream Cheese (Room temp)
4 oz Butter (room temp)
4 cups Powdered Sugar
8 oz Heavy Whipping Cream
MOP:
Make the Cake:
- For the cake version, bake the Red Velvet Cake in two 10" pans, following the box or Swans Down recipe. The cake will be thin. Let cool, wrap in plastic wrap, tight, and place in the refrigerator over night.
When making the cupcakes, make sure to have the cheesecake finished first.
-Mix the cake batter according to instructions.
-Pre-heat oven to 350F.
-Line large cupcake pans with cupcake liner.
-Fill the cupcake liners to a 1/3 of the way up. Using a smaller scoop or spoon, grab a 1 Tablespoon
size of your chilled cheesecake and put in the center of the cup cake. Pour more batter on top until
3/4 of the liner is full.
-Place in the oven. Turn oven down to 325F and bake for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan around and bake for another 15 minutes or until the cake, when pressed with your finger, springs back naturally (like a sponge) I don't like using the toothpick test on this cupcake because of the cheesecake center.
-Remove from the oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the pan and let chill another 15 minutes before topping.
Make the Cheesecake: (for both cake and cupcake)
-Pre-heat oven to 300F.
- Spray 10" spring form pan with oil and line with parchment paper (bottom is most important). Line the outside of the pan with aluminum foil to ensure no water seeps in. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese with a paddle attachment until smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl, ensuring there is no cream cheese lump. Add the Sour cream, sugar, and extract. Beat until combined. On slow speed, add the eggs. Beat until combined, scraping the bowl every so often. (DON'T FORGET THIS STEP! Scraping the bowl is very important for a uniform and very smooth cheesecake). Add the Heavy Cream and beat until combined.
-Make sure all ingredients are homogenous. Pour into your prepared spring form pan.
-Place the spring form pan in a larger pan (can be cake pan or large roasting pan that completely surrounds the spring form pan comfortably, without any tilting). Place the pans inside the oven. Pour hot boiling water into the larger pan to form a water bath. Water should come up to the height of the batter inside the pan. Lower the temperature to 250F.
-Bake for one hour. Turn the oven off and leave the door closed (DO NOT TOUCH!) for another hour. This ensures perfect naturally cooling, which means no cracks and smooth texture. Carefully remove the spring form pan from the water bath, remove the foil, and let set for 15 minutes at room temperature.
-At this point, if you are making the cake, wrap the cheesecake, still inside the spring form pan, with plastic wrap and place in your freezer over night. For the cupcake, the refrigerator will simply do.
Make the Topping:
- In a stand mixture, beat the cream cheese with your paddle attachment until smooth. Add the butter and continue to beat until homogenous and there are no lumps. Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, until your cream cheese icing is made.
- In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream into stiff peak whipped cream.
-Add a 1/3 of the whipped cream to the cream cheese icing and mix, by hand, with a spatula, until the mixture is uniform.
-Fold in the rest of the whipped cream, in two batches, until the topping is fluffy and smooth.
-Put the topping inside a piping bag fixed with your favorite star piping tip.
Assembly:
For the Cake:
-Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Make sure the tops of the cakes are level to ensure a uniform cake look. Place one of the 10" cakes on a dish or cake board.
-Remove the cheesecake from the freezer. Run warm water on the outside of the pan to ease release. Remove the sides. Remove all parchment paper. Flip the cheesecake onto your cake that's on the dish. Remove the bottom of the spring form pan and the parchment paper. Place the other Red velvet cake on top of the cheesecake.
-Using the topping that's in the piping bag, pipe the top of the cake in your favorite decorative form. I only decorated the top of the cake, leaving a naked cake visual. To finish, drizzle chocolate sauce (I used Hershey's Chocolate Syrup) as an added touch.
For the cupcake:
-After the cupcakes have cooled down, place them on your favorite serving dish.
-Using the topping that's in the piping bag, pipe the top of the cup cakes in a rosette form. To finish, drizzle chocolate sauce (I used Hershey's Chocolate Syrup) as an added touch.
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