Dorothy's Red Velvet Cake

By nlhartman

Ingredients

• For cake:
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
• 2 oz. red food coloring
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 tbsp. baking soda
• 2 tbsp. vinegar
• For frosting (I use 1 1/2x this recipe--needed more frosting to cover both cake layers.)
• 1 heaping tbsp. flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from people.com

Preparation

Step 1

To make the cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Grease and flour two 9-in. round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl, whisk together flour and salt.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat together shortening and sugar.
5. Add eggs one at a time to shortening mixture, beating well after each addition.
6. In a separate bowl, mix together cocoa and food coloring, and add to shortening mixture.
7. Mix vanilla into buttermilk, then add to the shortening mixture alternately with the flour mixture, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
8. Combine baking soda and vinegar, then fold into batter.
9. Divide batter between prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes.
10. Cool cakes in the pans for 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks. Peel off the parchment paper.

To make the frosting:
1. In a small saucepan, mix together flour and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until thick, about 3 minutes. Let cool completely.
2. In an electric mixer, beat together butter, sugar and vanilla.
3. Add cooled flour and milk mixture, and beat until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Ice cake.