Healing food

Unique Red Velvet Cake

CAKE
4-1/2 C cake flour, sifted
1-1/2 t salt
4 T Cocoa
4 oz. beet juice (drain from one 15 oz. can of beets - add water to make 4 oz., if needed)
1 C vegetable shortening
2-3/4 C sugar
4 large eggs
2 C buttermilk
1-1/2 T vanilla extract
2 T white vinegar
2 t baking soda

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Remember to use glass and metal utensils to avoid beet-juice stains.

Add salt and cocoa to sifted flour and sift again. With mixer on medium, cream together vegetable shortening and sugar for at least five minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating at least one minute after each addition.

Add beet juice and vanilla to buttermilk. Alternate adding these liquids and the flour-salt-cocoa mixture to the shortening/sugar. Use a spatula or put your mixer on low -- don't overbeat.

Put white vinegar in a small bowl and add baking SODA (not powder). It will foam up briefly. Fold into the cake batter -- DO NOT BEAT. Batter should be somewhat thick, but add water, if needed, to make a pourable batter.

Pour batter into prepared cake tins and bake for approximately 30 minutes in a 350 oven. Allow layers to cool for 10 minutes before removing from cake tins. Cool cake completely before frosting. Cut each layer in half to create a four-layer cake.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened
(Neufchatel tastes great, too, and has less fat -- as if that mattered given the rest of the recipe)
2 sticks butter or margarine
2 T vanilla
4 C powdered sugar
water or milk to thin, if needed