Red Cake

Many of Nana’s recipes came from friends or family.  Her sisters often gave her recipes they found but none were as adventurous to undertake some of these new and different forms of cooking or baking.  Many of her friends were not good cooks so they would hand off recipes to my mom knowing that if she made it she would share it; Nana was not only a good cook, but also a generous woman.

Her Red Cake recipe came from one of my aunts – her sister – can’t recall which one.  It arrived in her repertoire of recipes when I was in Junior high.  Her first cake was a big hit with family and friends, and she went on to make hundreds of them in her lifetime.  When I was in high school we would have banquets for groups and organizations that I was a member of.  My friends always hoped my mom would bring red cake. 

On one of her last birthdays Nana came to our house for dinner.  We had tried to prepare a dinner like she would have served us on our birthday.  I made fried chicken, and our youngest son Jason baked her a red cake.  Although she was no longer as clear mentally as she had once been, when she walked in saw the cake, and heard Jason say, “it smells just like Nana’s house” her eyes lit up and a smile graced her face.  It’s a memory Jason told to me not long before we decided to create this cookbook.

In her words here is her famous Red Cake recipe – written exactly as it is written on the card in her recipe box:

Nana’s Red Cake

½ cup shortening

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

2 oz. (1/4 cup) red food coloring

1-cup buttermilk

2 ¼ cups flour

1 tsp vanilla

2 TBSP Cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp Vinegar

Cream shortening w/ sugar (real good) – add eggs beat hard. Make a paste w/ cocoa and red food coloring – then add – continue to beat –alternately add flour & salt w/ buttermilk, continue to beat – add vanilla- lastly add baking soda w/ the vinegar – stir until it is mixed well – then put in 3 – 9” pans – bake at 350 about 25 – 30 min.  Test – do not over bake – cool –

Frosting for Red Cake

6 TBSP flour

1 – cup milk

1 – cup granulated sugar

1 – cup butter (I use ½ Crisco)

1 tsp vanilla

Cook flour & milk until real thick.  Cool

Cream butter and sugar – add vanilla.

Gradually add the flour & milk mixture

Beat well

Frost Cake

If you make this I promise you all will enjoy it.  When Nana started making Red Cake you could not buy it in bakeries or stores.  Today I find it in bakeries and supermarkets, but when she began making this cake she was probably the only person in our hometown who did so.

I personally think it is her signature cake – but read the other recipes and maybe you will find others that you like as well.