The Best Red Velvet Cake Ever

You may have noticed in my cookies/candy recipe(Cookies That Are Not Cookies, But Candy) that I used imitation vanilla flavoring. That was okay for that recipe, but for more special cooking, such as this recipe, I use the real thing.

Begin by creaming the Crisco, sugar, and Splenda in electric mixer for about 2 minutes, or until well-blended. Be sure the Crisco is
well-softened, or you will see tiny undissolved chunks of it in the mixture.

While the mixer is running on the Crisco and sugar, begin making the thin paste of food coloring and cocoa. In a small bowl or measuring cup, blend with a fork until smooth.

If the mixer is still running when you are done with the paste, go ahead and measure out one tablespoon of vinegar into another small bowl or measuring cup. But do not add the baking soda yet.

Gradually pour the cocoa and food coloring paste into the mixer, and continue mixing until ingredients are thoroughly combined. I think this is the most beautiful shade of red. The flour and milk will lighten it, but when it's cooked it becomes a dark, brilliant crimson.

While the mixer continues to blend the thin red paste into the sugar mixture, combine the 1 cup of buttermilk and vanilla flavoring in a measuring cup. Blend well with a spoon. You can just use the teaspoon used to measure out the vanilla.

By the way, these are my favorite measuring cups; I have them in several sizes. They really save my back from having to bend down to look through the side of the cup to see if I have an accurate measurement.

For this step you will need 2 large or medium-sized bowls. With your sifter in one of the bowls, put the cake flour into the sifter, and sift it into the bowl. Scoop up the sifted flour and put through the sifter again. Then measure out the flour needed for the recipe into the other bowl. You will have some unneeded flour left in the first bowl, as the sifting changes how it measures. This is why you should always sift flour BEFORE you measure it.

The unneeded flour can simply be poured back into the cake flour box.

In this photo you see the milk and vanilla mixture being added a little at a time to the mixer. Add this and the sifted flour alternately, while allowing the mixer to run. When both the milk/vanilla and the flour have been completely added, stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl, and stir just a bit. Then turn the mixer back on, and allow to run for another minute. Then check to see if you have a completely smooth mixture. If not, continue mixing. If it is completely smooth, you are done with the electric mixer.

This is where you add the soda to the vinegar. (For us Southerners, the words "soda" and "baking soda" are synonomous.)

Stir the mixture GENTLY until all the soda is dissolved. Then add it to the cake batter, and fold it into the batter. DO NOT BEAT. Continue to fold gently until it is completely blended into the batter. You're done and ready to bake. Well, almost.

This cake batter is a bit thicker than most cake batters. I left it this way in the photo to show you just how thick it will be. Just stir it around, and shake the pans if necessary until the batter covers the surface of the pans smoothly. I usually tap my pans of any type cake batter on the countertop a few times to allow any air bubbles to surface, so that my cakes are not full of little holes left by air pockets in the batter.

I learned about these little wonders on some TV cooking program I watched many years ago.

You know how the tops of cake layers are often rounded, and how this can be a problem for the top layer, if the bottom layer is too rounded? Well, these babies fix that. It turns out that, as the batter bakes, it begins baking along the sides of the pan first, which forces the raw batter toward the middle to puff up. (It has nowhere else to go, right?) These wet strips slow the baking around the sides so the batter in the middle is not so far behind in reaching the high temperature needed for baking.

You simply soak these strips in cold water while you are mixing the batter. Then squeeze out the excess water and wrap them around your cake pans. If you are accident-prone, wrap the pans before you pour in the batter.

Here I show the beginning of wrapping the pans. Each strip comes with 2 little T-pins. They look a lot like wig pins. Just hold the end of the strip in place, and stretch the strip until it is very tight around the pan. Then insert one T-pin. Continue wrapping, and insert the other T-pin into the other end of the strip.

Here you see the completely wrapped pan, with the first pin on the right, and the second pin on the left. Just be sure the pans are wrapped tightly. Otherwise, when you pick up your pans of batter, the strips will fall off.

For years I have used a pastry brush to remove loose crumbs from my cake layers before icing them. If using a dark color icing, the crumbs are not so much of a problem, but to have the bright red crumbs of this cake get into the white icing is very annoying.

This works best on cake layers that are completely cooled; even better on layers that are frozen. I have now combined this method with the crumb coat that is described and shown below.

I learned from watching Martha Stewart
that the top layer of a cake should have a "crumb coat", that is, a thin coating of icing which will trap the crumbs that inevitably find their way into the icing. In this photo you see the bottom layer with a crumb coat, but it is really necessary with only the top layer.

Allow the crumb coat to dry or, at least, to become set and, therefore, trap the crumbs before applying the full layer of icing. This is another reason to refrigerate my cream chese icing, The Best Cream Cheese Icing Ever, before applying it to the cake.