{ Ridiculous Red Velvet Cheesecake }

The last couple of days here have been a nightmare...my waste pipe backed up into the basement and destroyed everything, luckily my man can do just about anything including plumbing and he has the greatest friends anyone could want, so lucky! The entire job is now done and what once was a pretty cute front yard is now a huge dirt pile with digger tracks all over but hey...at least I have running water now. I'm just realizing that this is no kinda seg-way into a recipe but I have to tell you that I was starving after I came in and needed to get this experiment in red cheesecake underway. I saved this recipe a while back but tweaked it a bit as I went along. The recipe is from southern living & culinary concoctions from Peabody & utterly ridiculous!

I was asked today to make a Louis Vuitton birthday cake with red velvet cheesecake inside and I decided I really needed to try out the perfect recipe first! This was it. Super moist, creamy and the color was fabulous.

For the Crust:
1 ½ cups Oreo cookie crumbs
¼ cup butter, melted
1 TBSP granulated sugar

For the Filling:
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 TBSP unsweetened cocoa
3/4 cup sour cream
½ cup whole buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
1 (1 oz) bottles red food coloring

For the Topping:
4oz cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325F.

2. Stir together cookie crumbs (if you're making the crumbs at home from whole Oreo cookies, there's no need to remove the cream filling), melted butter and 1 TBSP sugar; press mixture onto bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan (it's fine if you have an 8-inch pan or a 10-inch one).

3. Bake the crust for 8 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool.

4. In a blender, add eggs, unsweetened cocoa, sour cream, buttermilk, vanilla extract, vinegar, cream cheese, and sugar. Mix until fully combined. I had to do mine in two batches, because my blender just couldn't contain all that filling.

5. Pour the mixed batter into a large bowl and add the food coloring. Mix well with an electric beater.

6. Pour batter into prepared pan with crust. Put it on a baking sheet (very important, in case you get any leaks!). Bake at 325F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 300F, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until center is firm.

7. Turn oven off, prop open the oven door a little bit, and let cheesecake stand in oven 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven; cool in pan on a wire rack for 30 more minutes. Then cover and chill for 8 hours.

8. For the topping: Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth; gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating until smooth. Remove cheesecake from refrigerator and spread topping evenly over top of cheesecake. Remove sides of spring form.

Verdict: Genius!! That color, that shockingly deep dark red moist cakey goodness & with the crunch of the chocolaty Oreo crust and that creamy cheesecake...too much for the palette!