She Wore Red Velvet (Again)

This is my birthday cake. Red Velvet, which I know is all hip now and all, but I got the recipe about 15 years ago from my great aunt Clara, who got the recipe from her mother, my great grandmother, Anna Eliza, who I guess got it from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel somehow. This is funny, because my great grandmother was a farm wife, come lady-be-good, and how this recipe made it from the gilded archways of the Waldorf Astoria to her table either in Salem, Indiana or outside Seattle, Washington is a mystery. Yet, from what I've heard, the Red Velvet cake has a mysterious grassroots history. I guess the fact that I have it some 60 years later back in Brooklyn, proves that. Besides it's probably the most beautiful cake I've ever seen.

Here's how I make it:

Cake Ingredients:
1 c. of vegetable shortening*
1 1/2 c. of sugar
2 Tbs. of unsweetened cocoa
2 oz. of red food coloring
1 tsp. of salt
3 eggs
1 tsp. of vanilla
1 c. of buttermilk
2 1/2 c. of sifted cake flour
1 1/2 tsp. of baking soda
1 Tbsp. of white vinegar

Directions:

• Preheat oven at 350. Butter and flour two 9" cake pans. Cream sugar and shortening until fluffy.
• Add eggs and beat well.
• In a separate bowl make a paste of the cocoa and food coloring and then add it to the first mixture.
• In a separate bowl mix salt, vanilla, & buttermilk. Alternating with the flour, add it into the first mixture and beat well.
• In a small bowl mix together soda & vinegar & fold it into the batter.
• Pour into the 2 pans and bake for 30 minutes.

Frosting Ingredients:
5 Tbsp. of flour
1 c. of milk
1 c. of sugar
1 c. of margarine*
1 tsp. of vanilla

Directions:

• Over medium heat, cook flour and milk, stirring constantly until thick. Then let cool completely.
• Cream together margarine, sugar, & vanilla.
• When completely cool add flour and milk mixture to the margarine mixture. Beat until spreadable.
• Spread between layers and cover the cake in frosting.

*Note: I don't use non dairy fats like shortening and margarine. I use butter all the way, baby. The result is a richer flavor, but try it any way you like.

Also, due to the red food coloring, the batter plays for KEEPS! The first time I made this, I stained a few things--so WATCH OUT.

It's the only cake that I would consider not slathering in frosting because it's so beautiful--but let's face it, cake is just merely a platform for which frosting is delivered upon. Also, it's the only cake that when you check to see if it's done, and your knife comes out with batter on it, you look like you just politely STABBED someone: