Old-Fashioned Red Velvet Cake

What You Need:

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 beaten eggs
• 2 oz. red food coloring
• 3 tablespoons Nestle’s Quik cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour, sifted 3 times
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon vinegar

How to Make It:

Cream shortening and sugar; add beaten eggs. Make paste of coloring and cocoa. Add to creamed mixture. Add salt, vanilla and flour alternately with buttermilk. Fold in vinegar and baking soda mixture. Bake at 350 degrees until cake tests done.

Helpful Baking Tip: Cake flour is not the same as all-purpose flour. Cake flour is a very fine-textured flour used mainly for making cakes and other baked goods. The lower protein content makes a lighter, fluffier baked good. If you must use all-purpose flour, decrease the amount of flour by 2 tablespoons for every cup of cake flour called for. This will help keep your cake from being overly dry.

White Fluffy Frosting:

What You Need:

• 5 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

How to Make It:

Cook flour and milk until thick; cool to lukewarm. Cream butter, shortening, sugar and vanilla; add to flour and milk paste and beat at high speed until fluffy. Tint light green if desired. Frost cake.