Red Velvet Cake - Annie's Eats

In addition to finding the perfect white cupcake recipe, I also need to find the perfect Red Velvet Cake recipe.  Red velvet cake is notorious for being tough to make, usually ending up way too dry.  But it's Kahly and her friends favorite kind of cake, so I thought I'd surprise them with their own "cutting cake" made out of the red velvet, just for the two of them.  The cupcakes will all be vanilla with pink frosting, but the cutting cake on top will be red velvet with some kind of frosting to match cupcakes so you can't tell it's red velvet underneath. So fun!

My first red velvet cake comes from Annie's Eats.  I made them into two 6" round cakes instead of cupcakes.  There was no recommendation from her on time for the cake version, so I just did trial and error and had to keep testing them for doneness.  I was so worried that they would be over cooked, so I errored on the side of caution and ended up undercooking them by just a couple minutes.  The very center on the top wasn't quite done, but it didn't affect the rest of the cake. I baked them for 30 minutes and should have done 31-32 minutes instead.  I followed the recipe exactly.  These cakes were AMAZING.  Seriously.  I wouldn't have called my self a red velvet fan prior to eating this cake, but now... well, I'm converted.  It was so moist, so fluffy (yet had good depth) and the flavor was out of this world good.  And the color of the cake, while definitely a "fake" red, was so bright and fun.  I loved everything about this cake.  I am going to try one more recipe just to make sure, but this one is already a clear winner in my mind.

For the frosting, I used the cream cheese frosting that went along with the cake recipe.  I had high hopes since the cake was so good, but I was severly let down.  While this frosting tasted every bit as good as a cream cheese frosting should taste, it was so soft and liquidly, even after being in the refrigerator for several hours, that it barely clung to the sides of the layered cake I made.  It was a soupy mess.  I followed the recipe exactly.  I have no idea where I went wrong.  Based on her post she has used this frosting to do wedding cakes and cupcakes, so I need to figure out what to do differently. I'm getting a little discouraged with frostings at this point.