Another Red Velvet Cake

Just can't seem to get enough of RVC. We had to bring a baked cake, frosted, ready to decorate for our cake deco. class.
The instructor had recommended using Wilton Buttercream, which I don't really care much for. I don't even know why they call it buttercream when there's no butter nor cream in it?! In fact, I don't really like many of the Wilton-recommended ingredients. They use a lot of shortening, which, despite the recent change in formulation, still has some level of trans-fat. The Wilton cake designs shown in the course books weren't very interesting - bright, loud colors, typical grocery-store-bakery-type designs, very "Wal-Marty". A cake is such an important part of any celebration - it's not just a cake or a dessert. It's the centerpiece. It's the conversation piece. It helps set the tone for the event. It seals in the memories of the ocassion. Now, why would you teach a class on how to decorate cakes just so that they'll look exactly like those you can buy at typical run-of-the-mill grocery stores? Call me a cake snob but compare this to this. See the difference?
Anyways, I asked if I could use my own home-made buttercream instead of the Wilton (blah) ones. She said ok, but just bear in mind that my frosting will be somewhat off-white and not pure white. What's wrong with ivory-colored buttercream? So I baked my RVC in 8" round pan, slice it into 2 half rounds, placed creamcheese frosting in the middle (yum) and then globerred my butter-creamcheese frosting all around.

It took me 2 hours to get the frost the cake and get it to the smooth texture I wanted! 2 freaking hours!! By the time I was finished, I was done. Really done. I brought the cake to class and while everyone seemed to have their designs all planned out (yeah, just copy the Wilton designs), I decided to do mine on the fly......and I only used the chocolate buttercream. Had to cave in and used the Wilton ready-made chocolate decorator icing since I ran out of time (and energy) to make my own buttercream for the flowers and detail designs. All in all, I was pleased with my cake. It looked nothing like the rest of the cakes they made in the class, which were all either pastel or other loud colors, with cartoonish flowers and roses piped on the cake. *Sigh*
Use good ingredients. Butter, not shortening. Bake from scratch, not out of a box. Make your own buttercream, not use the store-bought shortening-no-butter-no-cream-trans-fat nonsense. Use high quality vanilla extract or better still, real vanilla beans. Good quality chocolate for your important, special bakes (Hershey's too "everyday", don't you think) I think it's ok to be a cake snob. Why not?