Red Velvet Merry Christmas with the Cricut Cake - and Blog Candy

Are you looking for a special cake to serve family and friends during Christmas week?  Let me suggest this Happy Christmas Red Velvet cake.

This cake was soooo good and looked so pretty when cut.  I thought the recipe sounded odd so I took a sample to our friend Bill.  Bill is a connoisseur of red velvet cake and he loved it.  Soooo, all of that oil and sugar baked up wonderfully.  This is NOT a weight watchers friendly cake.  It IS a special holiday treat for you, your family, and guests.


Red Velvet Cake 

Unsalted butter, softened, for pans
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
powder, plus more for dusting
5 cups cake flour, not self-rising
2 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
3 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
4 tablespoons red food coloring
4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cup low-fat buttermilk
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 teaspoons white vinegar

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 3 nine inch pans; line with parchment paper. Butter lining; dust with cocoa, tapping out excess. Set aside.

2.Whisk together flour, salt, and cocoa in a medium bowl; set aside.

3. Mix sugar and oil on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk until combined. Add eggs one at a time; mix well after each addition. Mix in food coloring and vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed.

4. Stir together baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl. Add baking-soda mixture to batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.

5. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until a cake tester inserted into centers comes out clean, 30
to 35 minutes. Let cool completely in pans on wire racks.  You may split the layers in half vertically for a taller cake, though I did not split the layers on this cake.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:

2 (8 ounce) package cream cheese,
softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 tablespoons sour cream
4 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla
Extract
2 (16 ounce) box confectioners' sugar

Beat cream cheese, softened butter, sour cream and vanilla in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth.  Cool cake completely.  Add frosting between all layers, on top and on the sides.  We like this frosting so I make a large batch.

 The frosted cake was covered with red Fondarific fondant.

In all cases I chilled the 1/8th inch thick rolled gum paste before cutting.  Immediately after cutting, before removing the cut from the mat, I return the mat to the 'frig for another 20 minutes.  I then remover the cut and added it to the cake.  During the chill time, cut the next mat.

Using Cake Basics I cut the large doily for the top of the cake in white Cricut gum paste.  I added Wilton blue food paste to Cricut white gum paste to create the blue gum paste.  I used Holiday Cakes and cut out the Happy Christmas phrase. 

I added Wilton evergreen food paste to the white Cricut gum past to create the green gum paste.  I used the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge to cut the holly leaves.

Using the left over red fondant, I made the holly berries by hand. I added a touch of white gum paste to each berry as a highlight.

Decorating this cake was truly pretty easy, just remember to chill all fondant/gum paste before cutting and after cutting before you remove them for the mats. 

Because I have not shared a cake in soooo long (darned weight watchers!), I am offering a special Christmas blog candy. ...A chance to win a $50 Merry Christmas Gift Voucher from Custom Crops!!!  Just become a blog follower and leave a comment telling me about your favorite flavor of cake and you will be entered. 

I will draw one winner (combining comments from both blogs) this Friday so that you may have time to get yourself a great holiday gift.  This will be open to both of my blogs!

One more thing - My friend Terri over at Stamps Alive - see the link in the right hand column - is having a sale on Copic Markers!!!  Go Terri!


Here is the deal: 
Copic Sketch Sale! Buy 10 @ $5.15 Pick 4 FREE!! Do the Math!
Must Order by Friday the 17th at Midnight (pacific time)
email Terri @ stampsalive@cox.net to order!

BBTB2 Deck the Halls & Ornament Layout

Happy Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday!  This week's challenge cut is a "two-fer".  My lovely design team sister Jeri selected a two part challenge, Ornament 1 or 2 *and* the Deck the Halls phrase from the Winter Frolic cartridge.  There were sooo many possibilities to use these cuts that I was almost overwhelmed by the challenge. 

At first I designed a Christmas card using ornament 2 and the challenge phrase, but then I realized that I was in the mood for a layout.  My ventures in paper crafting began with scrapbooking and I still love to create scrapbook pages.  For this 12 x 12 scrap page I started with a blank base page of light, light pink cardstock.  To the blank background I added the cricut cuts and Christmas morning photographs of my children.

The Deck the Halls phrase cut was created with three cuts:  A smooth white cardstock shadow layer, a red metallic base layer, and silver metallic top layers.  I did not use all of the silver cuts because I liked the contrast of the red metallic on the white cardstock.  

The looped edge full page was designed in Cricut Design Studio.  I placed the loop edge border from the Cake Basics cartridge, welding four sets of loops together.  I copied and pasted the row of loops until I had four rows.  Using the "Turn 90" degree turn button, I turned three of the rows so that the loops all faced outward.  I then welded the loops to a 9 inch round edged square from the George cartridge.  Using a full sheet of SEI paper, I cut out the loop edged mat.

Next I cut out three Christmas ornaments, two from Winter Frolic and one from Joys of the Season.  I cut the shadow layer of all three ornaments in smooth white cardstock.  I used scraps of SEI, Bo Bunny, and Bazzill cardstock to cut the top layer of the ornaments.  A circle from George was placed inside each ornament, but was NOT welded.  The circles cut out and made windows for the photos.   

If you use the cut file - which is available to download from the side bar with the title "Deck the Hall & Ornament Layout" - you will see that there is one page which contains all of the metallic silver cuts.  I actually cut two of the scalloped frames on a different page so that they could be cut in red and green metallics.  They would have looked nice cut in silver also. I trimmed the top of each ornament with ornament print ribbon.

To assemble the page I began by attaching the looped matting to the light pink base.  I then added the large silver frame.  Next I affixed the Deck the Hall phrase into place.  And finally I added the three ornaments to the layout.

Be sure to go by BBTB2 and check out the amazing projects the created by the Design Team.  These women are FABULOUS designers!!!

You know, I am not sure that my children would appreciate that I placed Christmas morning photos on my blog for all the world to see, but I won't tell them if you don't!!