Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake

Put a dab of frosting on the serving plate. Top with the bottom layer of the first cake. Put 4 pieces of foil all around the cake layer covering the serving plate. This will make it for easy clean up at the end.

Reserve about 1 1/4 cups of frosting for decorating. Put about 1/3 of the remaining frosting on top of the cake, spread it around, cover with the other half o the cake layer. Now put the cheesecake layer, parchment side up. Peel the parchment paper off. Top with the top layer of the other cake, spread half of the remaining frosting around into an even layer. Cover with the last half of the cake, bottom side up.

Frost the cake with the remaining frosting, putting a thin layer on the sides and a thicker layer on top.

Now take the trimmed tops of the cake and pulse them in the food processor until crumbly, or just tear and rub it between the palms of your hands until tiny crumbs form.

Set the cake on a raised surface (like a cake stand) and put a baking sheet underneath to catch the crumbs as they fall. Take a palm full of crumbs and press against the sides of the cake all around, allowing the crumbs to fall back down into the pan, then recollecting them and going around.

Fit a pastry bag with a star pastry tip, now fill the pastry bag with the reserved frosting.

Now pipe faux christmas trees all around the border of the cake – to do so pipe a large star holding the tip close to the surface of the cake, then stop and quickly pull up, then pipe a smaller star right on top of the bottom layer, and one more even smaller then the two previous ones. You have a 3 layered Christmas tree. If the cake is not for christmas, just pipe large stars all around the border.

Now put a tiny sprinkle star at the top of each piped Christmas tree, then sprinkle it with sprinkles which will look like Christmas toys. I chose red and green, but you can sprinkle any colors.

Pull out the foil from underneath the cake, exposing a clean serving platter.

Refrigerate cake until ready to serve. To cut the cake, use a thin knife dipped in hot water then wiped.