I will admit that red velvet is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love to talk a ton of crap about it being a red-colored chocolate cake, but I still go out of my way to order it whenever I’m at a bakery and want to buy more than just one flavor of cake or cupcake. A part of it is that I can test how good a bakery is by their red velvet cake, but another part is because I just love my semi-bland chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and I don’t know why! But that’s probably the reason a classic is a classic. For my version, I wanted to break in the good ol’ loaf pans again, and do cake loaves that have a cream cheese baked inside of them. To top them, I went with a cream cheese namelaka(whipped white chocolate mousse), just to give a lighter feeling to these rather dense, rich cake loaves. I also used beet juice in the cake batter itself, since I don’t like using artificial coloring in the batter, and the beet juice does a good enough job getting the cake there.

Makes 4 cake loaves:
For the cream cheese namelaka:
1/2 teaspoon gelatin powder + 1 tablespoon cold water
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
a pinch of salt
4oz cream cheese

Mix gelatin with cold water. Place into the heavy cream and bring to a simmer. Pour in the white chocolate and salt and stir on low heat until everything is fully melted together. Place into a bowl and whisk with the cream cheese until combined and fluffy. Transfer into a piping bag when using.

For the cream cheese:
4oz cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip until soft. Transfer into a piping bag.

For the cake batter:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup beet juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix together to form your batter. Pour into 4 lined mini loaf pans. Pipe the cream cheese into each of the cakes. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through to guarantee even baking. Allow the cakes to fully cool before unmolding, and finish with the whipped cream cheese on top.