Hello!

So, August is here and we celebrate women’s month. There are so many inspiring women out there – my ultimate ‘hero’ and icon must be Martha Stewart. She is just so clever, a true entrepreneur and surely an inspiration to many moms, wives and housewives the world over.
Yes, there was that unfortunate incident many moons ago involving some tax evasion… But hey, who can blame her?! {Just kidding – that was not so cool!}

Ok, so today I will share my all-time-go-to red velvet recipe. This must be the most popular cake variety ever – people just go gaga over it!
And why?
Well, with its moist and fluffy body of cake, blood red of course, topped with classic cream cheese frosting, it’s a universal crowd-pleaser. It has an ever-so-subtle hint of chocolate and well, it’s just sexy, really!

So here it is – from this fab book:

350g cake flour
300g sugar
1t baking soda
1t cocoa powder
1t salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs at room temp
375ml sunflower oil
1t white vinegar
30ml red food coloring
1t vanilla extract

Mix all the dry ingredients and set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients in a mixer and add the dry ingredients.
Divide the batter between 24 cupcake cases and bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Top generously with cream cheese frosting:

250g butter, softened slightly
230g {1 tub} cream cheese
3 cups icing sugar

Whip the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and mix until it is smooth.
Pipe onto those delicious red little gems!

Now, on the topic of women and femininity… I am now totally convinced that the power of a woman lies in her hair! Ok, before anyone gets their panties in a knot, that’s just my opinion…
See, I had luciously long hair and decided {not too long ago} to chop it all off. It felt great at the time and I had a new, fun and fabulous cropped ‘do’…
But since I’ve had it chopped, I really feel less feminine… And I consider myself to be quite a feminine girl.
So, thus I decided to grow it all back again. But this time I won’t wear it quite as long, just below shoulder-length.

Ok, that was a bit random, but I felt it went with today’s post.

Enjoy – and Happy Women’s Day to all you lovely and feminine gals out there! X