Red Velvet Cake

When you come across a great recipe, it's a good practice to give credit where credit is due.

This Red Velvet cake recipe is out of the book, Stories and Recipes from Mia Famiglia: Cake Boss written by Buddy Valastro from the TLC TV series.  It's wonderful and very moist.

Makes two 9-inch cakes or 24 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
4 1/2 teaspoons (2 tubes) red food-coloring gel
3 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting pans
1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
3 extra-large eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
Unsalted butter, for greasing 2 cake pans (about 2 tablespoons); non-stick cooking spray or vegetable oil may be substituted

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put the shortening, sugar, cocoa powder, food coloring, cake flour, salt, vanilla, baking soda, and vinegar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Paddle, starting at low speed, then raise the speed to low-medium and mix about 1 minute. Add the eggs, 1 at  time, mixing for 1 minute after each is absorbed into the mixture. Add the buttermilk in two stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl between additions.
3. Grease two-9-inch pans with the butter, and flour them.
4. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans, using rubber spatula to scrape down the bowl and get as much obattar as possible out.
5. Bake until the cake begins to pull from the side of the pan and is springy to the touch, 35 - 40 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour. The cake should be at room temp. before you remove it from the pan. Put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet, top with sugar, dump onto parchment; the sugar will keep it from sticking. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to decorate.