Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting: A Lesson in Being Honest With Who I Am

So, for my pal's 30th birthday (murder mystery) party, I was in charge of the cake and I really wanted to go classic and layer. So after some flip-flopping, I finally decided on the below red velvet cake recipe from Bon Appétit's website.
BUT then, after writing down the ingredients and thinking about all the work involved and the economic crisis, which is always compounded by the fact that I'm a grad student and then there was the price of berries and seeing that Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe was on sale for $1.99 when just moments before I had felt like nothing could be $1.99, I changed my mind.

Long story short. Here's their version:

and mine:

All that being confessed and me still being me, I still couldn't buy the fake, hydrogenated-oil-laden icing, so I did make that from scratch via the Bon Appétit recipe.

And hey, I still had to hand-mix the batter, didn't I?


Part of the reason why I stuck with the Bon Appétit icing was because the ingredients list was so simple: butter, cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar. Only, it did call for an electric mixer and yes, this is what you get when hand-mixing butter with cream cheese:

Fast forward to the part that I was nervous about...

Almost there...

Look! (and with no offset spatula like they are always telling me to use!)

p.s. dear food stylists, beat this: