Red velvet cake

I made this cake for Thanksgiving and it was really, really good! Here's what it started out looking like:

And after we dug into it:

OK, those aren't the BEST pictures ever but the cake was delicious!

What you'll need:

• ½ cup shortening
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp red food coloring
• 2 Tbl cocoa
• 1 Tbl vinegar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup milk + 1 Tbl lemon juice*
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ flour
• 1 tsp vanilla

I used my stand mixer to make this cake, so it was running the whole time. If you are using a hand mixer, mix well after each addition of ingredients. 

*If you don't have buttermilk on hand (which I didn't), mix together the milk & lemon juice and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350° Mix together baking soda & vinegar & set aside. Cream shortening and then beat in the sugar. Allow to mix until sugar granules are dissolved (about 5 minutes). Mix together food coloring & cocoa and add to batter. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix together salt & flour and add alternately with milk to batter, starting and ending with flour. Beat in vanilla. Fold in baking soda/vinegar mixture. Pour into 3 - 8" pans or 2 - 9" pans & bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool slightly in pans on wire racks (about 10 minutes) then remove from pans & allow to cool completely on wire racks (about 2 hours). Frost as desired. I used the frosting recipe that I gave you yesterday.

Cost:

shortening - $1.89
sugar - $2.42
eggs (18 count) -$1.47
cocoa - $2.84
vinegar (small) - $0.92
all purpose flour - $1.25
milk - $1.78/gallon
Total - $3.19