Grandma's Red Velvet Cake

I grew up in a very tight-knit family where we spent every holiday together and my sister and I spent almost every weekend at our grandparent's house. I became very close to my grandmother over the years and, of course, she was everything a grandmother should be: warm, loving, fun, a great baker, a great cook, selfless, hard-working, energetic and more. She passed away a few years ago, but I have only the most wonderful memories of her. She was an amazing woman and I admired her so much, especially her ability to bring the family together with her cooking. Every Sunday after church we had lunch at her house. It was more of a feast actually as in about an hour the table would be filled with all sorts of food, hot and ready to eat. And of course there were desserts on stand-by for afterward. Usually a pecan pie or homemade ice cream, but other times we would get a cake and if it was a red velvet cake, the crowd would go wild.

I have a cookbook from the school where my grandmother used to work and after looking it through it for recipe ideas, I discovered my grandmothers very own red velvet cake recipe! I had to make it ASAP and I did indeed. It wasn't as good as my grandma used to make, but I did what I could and it was still delicious. =) Besides, nobody can bake as good as grandma, right?

If you want the best red velvet cake recipe ever, read on:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. cocoa
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. vinegar
2 eggs
1 oz. red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients. Add other ingredients in order. Mix for 2 minutes. Bake in greased and floured pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

Here's what my cakes looked like with I pulled them out of the oven. Nice and red! You could do this as a sheet cake, but I wanted a round cake to take to a family event.

After the cakes finished cooking, I started working on the icing. Once again I used my grandmother's recipe. What goes better with red velvet cake than cream cheese icing? That's right, nothing.

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick margarine
1 box confectionery sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Blend together cream cheese and margarine until smooth. Gradually add box of confectionery sugar and vanilla while blending.

I did a crumb coat first and then iced the cake. My grandmother usually garnished the cake with slivered almonds, but I was lazy. =) haha.

It was still a hit at the family gathering though so that's good. Yay for grandma and her recipes!