Red velvet & cream cheese.

Tonight we celebrated my niece's birthday! She will be 10 on Monday, which is hard to believe. For the past couple years she has mentioned that she has wanted a luau themed birthday party.  This year my Mom made it happen-- and thankfully the threat of Hurricane Irene didn't rain it out. There was a brief down pour, and then we were back outdoors.

Since I make the cakes in the family, I was naturally asked to make the birthday cake-- actually it's kind of expected. Kind of random but the request by my niece was a red velvet cake. I don't think my sister was even aware that she had ever had red velvet cake. She wanted me to attempt to make the cake in the shape of a "Hawaiian Flower", and red velvet typically comes with cream cheese frosting.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate working with cream cheese frosting??  It tastes absolutely delicious! I'm a huge fan of anything with cream cheese in it, but it is a literal pain in my side for decorating. It just doesn't get the the right consistency necessary for decorating. I've tried a few different recipes and they have all turned out kind of goopy and runny which isn't conducive for a pretty cake unfortunately. So I'm not happy with the look, but here's the birthday girl and her cake-- I will say that it tasted great, and I came home with an empty cake pan. Daniel says, "you can't sacrifice taste for looks, who cares what it looks like?" I'll go with that on this one, although I am a little disappointed.

And can't resist a post without Leeland!!?