Sexy! Luscious! Red Velvet

I promised my cousin Jade (a domestic goddess and fellow baker) that I'd send her my Red Velvet recipe. I decided rather to share it with all of you. There's something about Red Velvet cake that is so gorgeous.

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

5 tsp red food coloring or a beetroot reduction

1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (celsius). Prepare your cupcake pan.

In a large mixing bowl sift flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and salt together.

In another mixing bowl combine the buttermilk, eggs, oil, vinegar, food coloring and vanilla essence.

Mix the flour mixture into the buttermilk mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake papers and bake to 20 minutes. Decorate with cream cheese frosting and organic rose petals (that's where the sexy comes in!).

This recipe comes from one of my all time favorite books, Cakes to Celebrate Love and Life. (I recommend that if you're buying from inside South Africa you get it from Kalahari.net - it's cheaper).

Happy baking!