Robbie's "Redless" Velvet Cake ... for Me!

. My birthday was, oh, forever ago, but I've been anxiously awaiting when I would have enough time to document the surprise that came from my one and only.  For my birthday, my boyfriend graciously offered to bake ME a birthday cake.  Me?!  What?!  Okay!

For this beyond epic event, I had to do something to make sure that I would be able to share with everyone what he was about to do for me (I know his family would thoroughly enjoy being a part of this!).  So I whipped out our FlipVideo and taped EVERY moment of the process I could [without being a nuisance, of course].

As you can probably tell, this post will be quite different from any others I have personally created.  No pictures.  No captions.  Only the recipe itself and a number of videos of my boyfriend baking his very first cake.  Hopefully you enjoy every second of this as much as we [more like 'I', I think my boyfriend stressed a little] did!

P.S. - I just want to let you know that my boyfriend did everything for this cake, including picking out the recipe!  He originally chose a Red Velvet Cake, but we opted to leave out the food coloring because for his first time, it could have gotten a little messy.  I really thought he chose a more difficult cake, but I was proven extremely wrong.  Here's how it all went! .

Redless Velvet Cake    

Adapted from Food Network's Grandmother Paula's Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients:
Cake:
2 c. sugar
1 c. butter, room temperature
2 eggs
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
2-1/2 c. cake flour
1 tsp. salt
1 c. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. vinegar

Frosting:
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. marshmallows, melted
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
1 c. shredded coconut

Directions:

1.  Heat oven 350°F.  Grease and flour 3 8-inch round pans; set aside.

2.  In mixing bowl, cream sugar and butter and beat until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well after each addition.  Add cocoa and mix well.  

3.  Sift together flour and salt.  Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk.  Blend in vanilla extract.  In small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture.  

4.  Pour batter into pans.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted of center of cake comes out clean.  Remove from oven and cool completely.

5.  For frosting, blend cream cheese and butter together in bowl.  Add marshmallows and powdered sugar and blend.  Fold in coconut.

6.  Set one cake on serving platter.  Spread frosting on top of cake and top with second cake.  Repeat with remaining cake layer.  Frost top and sides of cake.

Yield: 16 servings

*Robbie's (My) Notes:

• This cake turned out fantastic!  I have to say, I was thoroughly impressed with his baking ability.  I had personally never used cake flour before, but it made this cake so incredibly light and fluffy and was complemented with a rich cream cheese frosting.  I will definitely be using cake flour in the future, I LOVE it!
• The original recipe called for pecans, but neither of us were really feeling that so we decided to leave them out.  But of course, feel free to add in the 1 cup of chopped pecans called for, it would give the dessert a nice little crunch.