Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

For my first dessert I chose a Red Velvet Cake. Typically it is made with a Cream Cheese Frosting, but I decided to go with White Chocolate instead! I first made this cake last year for my birthday and really enjoyed the flavor as well as the deep red color. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it again this year for my birthday.
My husband, 2 children and I went to Whole Foods, and my quest was for my favorite cocoa powder to use in this cake. Valrhona Chocolate. I first heard of it last year during a Bravo channel episode of "Top Chef Just Desserts". It is excellent and is my preferred choice with all my baking! Unfortunately they were out of it, most likely due to the Holidays! So I opted for another brand. It turned out good but not Valrhona. If you are interested in trying this brand, it is excellent and the only place in RI that carries it is Whole Foods, but beware it is pricey.

This year I chose a recipe from "175 best babycakes cupcake maker" written by Kathy Moore and Roxanne Wyss, but I modified it to include the tweaks I had made last year.

The cake itself was easy to make. I made 2 batches of the recipe, 1 batch fills one 8" round cake pan. For the vinegar I used white, but prefer cider if I have it in the house (was all out this time). Also I prefer to use red food coloring gel, but any type of red food coloring will do. If interested in the recipe, refer to the Recipe index to the left of this blog.

The filling was my new creation and had its fall backs, but all in all was my favorite filling with this cake. I made a White Chocolate Cream filling and topped that with fresh sliced strawberries. The strawberries were a huge hit with my kids. They couldn't get enough of them. I used heavy whipped cream, with powdered sugar and melted Ghirardelli white chocolate. My fall back was in the whipping. I'm pretty sure I over whipped. Also the melted chocolate when mixed with the cold cream chunked up a little. I would try this again, but with White Chocolate cocoa powder. I had looked in Whole Foods for this but they did not carry it. I will need to purchase it online in the future!

For the butter cream frosting, I use my staple: but added some of the melted white chocolate. It turned out okay, but because I came up with this on the fly, I ended not having enough  melted white chocolate to really make this butter cream taste like the white chocolate. It ended up with just a hint of the flavor. Next time I would make sure I bought enough. NOTE: the recipe posted has the amounts of chocolate that I believe would be needed to make this frosting the way I had wanted it to taste.

All in all, this cake turned out to be pretty tasty, and would make it again! But would still add some tweaks to the filling and frosting! That's what I love about baking... just keep adjusting till you get the texture and taste you love!