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["Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. I actually waited till I had creamed the butter and sugar before I did this. (I feel it's a waste of gas to start preheating before anything. But please, if you don't have any issues with this, preheat the oven first). Grease pans. I normally use non-stick pans so I grease lightly but for this I had to buy a local pan because I did not see the non-stick heart-shaped pans. In this case, you grease your pan with butter, margarine or vegetable oil. After that, coat the pan with flour by sprinkling flour on the grease and shaking it to evenly distribute. This will help it not to burn and it will come out easily from the pan after baking.
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Shortening refers to butter or oil. Traditional Red Velvet cakes make use of oil but I decided to use butter because I am not too sure how vegetable oil (Turkey Brand) will taste in cake. I have soya oil which is relatively odorless and tasteless but the recipes I saw specifically stated vegetable oil with the only substitute being butter.
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Cream the shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy. I used the good old hand-and-spatula method.(Planning to buy an electric mixer soon, there are affordable ones that can serve you for little quantities of batter).
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Add eggs one by one. Mix well before adding the next one.
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Make a paste of cocoa and red food coloring. I did not use as much coloring as the recipe required and it turned out red enough. Add to creamed mixture.Mix salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla and buttermilk together. To make buttermilk, put one tablespoon of vinegar in a measuring cup (1 cup), and then add enough milk to fill the cup. Let it stand for 5-10 mins. One tin of peak milk was exactly enough. Peak milk is evaporated milk and it's not the kind of milk they refer to but na naija we dey, all join! :-D. I used one cup of this my homemade ""buttermilk"" and one cup of yogurt. You can use 2 cups of plain yogurt instead if you don't have buttermilk.", "Mix salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla and buttermilk together. To make buttermilk, put one tablespoon of vinegar in a measuring cup (1 cup), and then add enough milk to fill the cup. Let it stand for 5-10 mins. One tin of peak milk was exactly enough. Peak milk is evaporated milk and it's not the kind of milk they refer to but na naija we dey, all join! :-D. I used one cup of this my homemade ""buttermilk"" and one cup of yogurt. You can use 2 cups of plain yogurt instead if you don't have buttermilk.
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Add the milk mixture alternately with the flour to the creamed mixture. Divide the flour into three parts and the milk into two. Add flour, add milk, add flour, add remaining milk, and then add flour. Always end with flour.
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Mix soda and vinegar in a cup. It will start foaming quickly. Gently fold it into the cake. Folding means adding ingredients without beating or mixing vigorously. Just run the spatula around the sides of the bowl and gently raise the spatula so it's like trying to scoop the batter or turn it over. (My dear, I no know the English wey I go use again o. For those of us who are learners we might need to see it first to understand)
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Put the batter into the pan and bake until a knife or toothpick inserted into it comes out clean. The original recipe said 30 minutes but I don't know the kind of oven these oyibo people use. At 180 degrees, I baked this cake for almost an hour and 3o minutes."]
