Red Velvet Cake

Last weekend I made a large Red Velvet cake for a friend's milestone birthday.
It all started with a small cake and a tiny amount of cream cheese frosting....
In the corner you can see my favorite trick, a spray bottle filled with simple syrup. I spray down each layer before I add the frosting, so that the cake stays moist even when refrigerated. Genius!
I was going to take pictures of each step, but I had some camera issues and was under a time crunch, so the unfrosted cake is now magically layered, filled, and frosted. I took this picture to show that all cakes begin life as homely, coarsely frosted beasts.
However, they don't stay that way for long, thanks to my leeetle friends. A metal spatula and boiling water is the ultimate cake-smoothing combination.
After writing on the cake and doing the background vines, it was time to add the flowers. I'd made the flowers the night before while watching TV (highly recommended when performing any tedious task. TV makes everything more interesting) and kept them in the refrigerator. The buttercream hardens nicely, and usually I can just pull the flowers off the backing and stick them on the cake. However, it was SO warm in my apartment they kept breaking prematurely, so I had to keep sticking the sheet in the freezer every few minutes. I added the flowers 3 and 4 at a time, then back into the freezer it went. This final step took much longer than it should have.

The cake, she is finished. ..
...and ready for her close-up.