They have photographed each flavor: view them in the slideshow on their site!

Serious Eats: Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory

My hands-down favorite so far is the red velvet cake cheesecake. Layers of red velvet cake intermingled with a mellow original cheesecake.. delicious. After viewing this slideshow I think I’m going to be motivated to venture out of my comfort zone and sample some new flavors!

In their Best-Of list Serious Eats categorizes the cheesecakes into four clusters:

1. Topped Cheesecakes
2. Flavored Cheesecakes
3. Layered Cheesecakes
4. Layered Cake-Cheesecakes (my favorite!)

So, now if I’ve made you hanker a slice, stop by a Cheesecake Factory on July 30. All slices will be half-price. How could one resist?

Via Flickr:
Lincoln made a checkerboard out off the excess cake I cut off. Yum!

When you cut off the excess cake, never waste! Much fun can be had with the trimmings.

This piece became a delectable delight – and fun to gaze upon – after applying some excess buttercream in a checkboard pattern.

What creative methods have you put your cake trimmings to use?

Absolutely adorable “Artoo!” cake! All is edible sans the bow tie.

Always my favorite character, back from when I was a wee tyke.

The only question: where do you slice first?

I’m perusing my photo library and finding all sorts of baked goods that I haven’t shared. Back in ’09 I acquired one of those beautiful Wilton giant cupcake pans.

A family friend was having back surgery so I pulled out 2 carrot cake mixes and a couple tubs of cream cheese frosting and gave it a shot.

It’s been a while, but if I recall correctly, I had to bake several minutes beyond the cake mix instructions. I followed the instructions that came with the pan, but kept my eye on the cake toward the end.

The pan hold just slightly over one cake mix, so I made two cake mixes, filled the giant cupcake pan appropriately, and made cupcakes with the rest.

Next time I’ll stop icing a little sooner, way before I reach the “liner”.

Aren’t these rosette tops on the mini (normal sized) cupcakes just the cutest? I love using a 1M tip to make this rosette top. A nice variation to the typical 1M swirl we see.

Have you used the giant cupcake pan? I’d love to see it – link to your creation in the comments!

My husband and I are huge sushi fans (raw for him, tempura for me – yes you can mock me later for not being a real sushi eater) so imagine my delight when I opened up my Flickr stream a few weeks back.

I could figure out a few of the ingredients myself: the masago looks like sugar pearls, lustre dust for some of the coloring… but it was just so lifelike I had to ask Jaime for the details. Here’s the word from the source:

Ha, yup, the masago was made of sugar pearls painted with orange food colouring.

The sushi cake is actually pretty darn easy. This was my first (and definitely not last) sushi cake. The “rice” was pretty much just small pieces of cake covered with white vanilla buttercream and rolled in coconut. You can do it out of rice cereal treats as well (ice and roll). I happened to overbake that day and had lots of cake leftover.

The toppings and sashimi were mostly made out of fondant with a bit of tylose mixed in. You could also use a 50/50 gumpaste to fondant ratio, but I was in a rush to go have fun so I didn’t have time to make gumpaste. Tylose stiffens up the fondant and makes it a little easier to work with.

I’m a go with the flow kind of decorator and make do with what I have… the tuna was coloured with red petal dust, the salmon with orange petal dust etc. I think the key is to selectively brush on more of the petal dust after you’ve shaped and marked the fish so that you give it more depth and realism. Same with the shrimp.. shaped it out of the fondant/tylose mixture and dusted it with the orange and red petal dust. I did a couple pieces out of coloured white modeling chocolate as well, but there was no real difference between the modeling chocolate and fondant – just taste.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the rundown, Jaime! Apparently we just missed her on Food Network Challenge’s episode “Best In Show Cakes”. Keep an eye out for the re-run!

Have you ever seen a cake so delectable as both a cake and its decorated doppelganger?

This cake is a great mixture of fondant and buttercream. The ants and watermelon shell appear to be fondant, where the softer interior and ant legs are buttercream frosting.

A perfect cake for a summer picnic – decorations that won’t slide away in the heat!

Apple cardamom cupcakes wrapped with white chocolate highlighted with 24k gold dust and a shabby chic rose from Flickr user schmish.

I love the artful placement of the sugar pearls. And wow! I really want to get a hold of some molding chocolate for those beautiful wrappers.