Let there be cake!

After my first bite I was hooked!  There was just something about that rich velvety chocolaty deliciousness that they call Red Velvet that sends my taste buds into another dimension of flavour.  Why was this cake so different???  I had no clue.....all I knew was that I had to figure out how it was done!  So I began my search on the internet....only to find only about a gazillion recipes out there.....all with slight variations.  So I tried out a few recipes....some were terrible others amazing.  But I've found the recipe that works best for me.  I like my Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Icing over the white icing....but that's just me.

I've made them for my daughter's 2nd birthday - she hated them but the adults LOVED em!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

And I made a Red Velvet cake for my classmates to celebrate the year we spent together....(it was my first time writing on a cake!) 

Red Velvet Cake for my PR Class of 2011

 Here's the 'winning' recipe!  Feel free to give it a go!

Red Velvet Cake:

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbp (heaping) cocoa

1/4 cup red food colouring

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/4 cup cake flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbp white vinegar

1 tsp baking soda

preheat oven at 350 degrees

1. Cream butter and sugar together til 'fluffy'

2. Add eggs

3. Make a paste with the food colouring and cocoa and add to the creamed mixture

4. Add vanilla

5. Add buttermilk and sifted flour and salt alternating between the two

6. In a separate bowl add baking soda to the vinegar (as you will remember from grade school science -- IT FOAMS! so choose a not so small bowl)

7. Blend (rather than beat) the soda/vinegar mixture to the batter

for cupcakes --> bake for about 20 mins or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean or when you touch the top...they 'bounce' back

for cakes --> bake for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean or when you touch the top...it 'bounces' back

I used a homemade cream cheese icing on the cupcakes and a store bought (I was feeling a tad lazy) icing for the grad cake......mind you I regret using the store bought stuff.......the homemade version tastes WAAAAYYYYYYYY better! 

For the cream cheese icing I used on the cupcakes....the trick to making pipe-able cream cheese icing is to start with COLD cream cheese and no over mixing!

Cream Cheese Icing

250g cream cheese (COLD)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (Room temperature)
1-2 tsp vanilla (use less if you're not a huge vanilla fan)
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar


1. Start with COLD cream cheese and combine with room temperature butter

2. Add vanila 

3. Sift in powdered sugar gradually 

4. Mix until smooth (DO NOT OVER MIX!)

Then feel free to pipe your lil heart out! :)

Good luck and happy baking!

Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are

This journey called life is not easy but I couldn’t have taken a step without you by my side.

The journey of a thousand miles begins but with one step or so they say....but I say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a thousand voices of encouragement.

You just don’t realize how much the youtube videos or funny memories or clever status’ literally dry the tears from my eyes and shift my day into one of amazing energy.

To those of you who encourage me, love me, take a few seconds out of your day to say and find out how I am....I appreciate you.

Whether I’ve known you for weeks, months or years the impact you’ve made on my life will never be forgotten.

They say you can’t pick your family so pick your friends wisely....and I am beyond blessed to have some of the best friends a girl could ever ask for.

If someone had sat me down and showed me my life now, then, I wouldn’t have believed them....there are so many of you that I admire and aspire to be like...

Sometimes I like dwelling in the shadows of my friends to look up to them in awe of the amazing person they are secretly wishing to emulate their greatness...then there are times when I would rather walk side by side conquering the world together.

You have laughed with me, cried with me, smiled with me and supported me.  I truly appreciate your friendship and I couldn't have asked for better friends!

Someone told me recently how impressed they are with the circle of positivity I’ve enclosed myself with and after taking stock I have to agree....never before have I had such an amazing group of people that I am able to truly call friends.

Well I’ve showed you who my friends are so this who I am..strength, courageous, beautiful, wonderful, supportive, creative, comical, amazing, a blessing, truth, love, life, giving, humility, teacher, student, gentle, bold, special, incredible and irreplaceable.

At least that’s the way I would describe each and every one of you!

So to my friends...I LOVE YOU....til we talk, text, facebook, tweet or see eachother again! XO

By any means necessary....I have a dream...

****re-post, I deleted it by accident...Original post date: January 18, 2011****

I don't think we get it!

Somewhere along the lines we missed the point of it all.  We missed the point of the struggle.  The sting of the pain.  The way the sweat burned our eyes.  The many tears that flowed, and the blood that spewed senselessly from the veins of our predecessors.   We seem to have forgotten the burnt crosses in our yards, the lynching of our babies, and the killing for no reason other than hatred of the beauty of our skin.   We seem to have forgotten the struggle, that really isn't completely over, it's just disguised in various forms.

I watched Malcolm X today.  I movie that I know many people blow off because it's 3 and a half hours long. It's amazing that some of us won't even sit through 3 hours of history. *foodforthought*

It brought tears to my eyes to have a visual representation of what our mothers, fathers, grand mothers, grand fathers, etc went through.  It pulls on that spot in my heart that aches and groans when I think about the past.  When I think about how lucky I am that I was born into a time where blatant racism is somewhat a thing of the past.  But strangely enough I wish I was there to experience the struggle first hand.  A part of me identifies with that time in history more than the age I'm in. 

It's hard to think that the greats like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks etc walked among us only 45 years ago.  Just 45 years ago we were still fighting for our rights and freedoms. Being told to use the back doors and being chased by dogs on the way to get an education.

Now looking around we have forgotten what it means to be Black, African American, African Canadian, Afro American, Negro, and dare I say it...Nigger.  Not to discredit anything that US President Barack Obama has done...because he has and is accomplishing great things in the position that he's on right now.  But seems like we treat him like an exception; as though the only reason that he got where he did was because of his lineage, not his merit. He has definitely continued the dream we all dream about and has in many ways renewed the faith and hope for a better future.  (Keep in mind this has nothing to do with whether you think he's doing a good job in office....that is not the point of this reference...that's for another blog another day!)

To me it seems as though somewhere along the line the memory of all the hurt, pain, tears, fear, sweat, and blood got shoved to the backs of our minds and we don't even think about how much our past effects our future.  It seems like we somehow treat our roots like they didn't exist....kinda how we straighten our hair(I admit I'm guilty of that one BUT once again....another post for another time) if we can't see it, it doesn't exist. 

In a few days will be Martin Luther King Day and a few weeks we'll celebrate Black History Month.  We'll all wear the T-shirts and shout the slogans and sing it loud 'I'm Black and I'm proud!' but so what???  Come March 1st we go back to disrespecting each other.  Not caring for our brothers and sisters.  We go back to killing each other and the vicious cycle continues!

"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual." -- Martin Luther King Jr.


.....as always .....comment.....discuss.....let's start a dialog.....peace n blessings.....

Snooki paid more than Toni Morrison?!?!?!?

I hopped on Twitter today only to find that Toni Morrison was trending and naturally I wondered why (hoping that she wasn’t the latest celebrity that people were trying to ‘kill’.)  Then, I saw a tweet that stated that Rutgers University paid Snooki a $32,000 speaker’s fee.  MORE than Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning Toni Morrison was paid to speak at commencement.  

HMMM!

I am terribly disturbed by this article; however, I'm not entirely surprised by this ridiculous news.  It's no wonder society is falling apart at the seams  if more value is placed on a speech from a reality 'star' whose celebrity has no merit than words of wisdom from one of the best writers of the modern era. 

It baffles my mind that a UNIVERSITY would want to provide students with advice from Snooki on "hairstyle, fist pumps, as well as the GTL — gym, tanning, laundry — lifestyle," instead of furthering academia and knowledge.   It just goes to show what society finds appropriate....and it certainly isn't intelligence.

“Gregory Kassee, vice president of the association's comedy and movies committee, said the group was looking for a speaker who would appeal to Rutgers students.”  SERIOUSLY?!  What is the appeal?  She hasn’t done anything spectacular.  She didn’t speak on anything that would challenge their intellect and make them think a little harder....she spoke about hair, fist pumps and tanning. 

I feel like I’m an old person living in some kind of time warp....what is the appeal?  I just don’t get it, nor do I want to!

I'm reminded of the phrase "knowledge is power" and so I wonder....if that statement rings true, has this generation lost its power???  Has it given up and succumb to a norm of foolishness and mediocrity? 

I feel like this generation isn't being challenged anymore....and that the proverbial bar keeps getting lowered to accommodate those who refuse to try.  I remember at time (not so long ago) when such outrageous injudiciousness was rejected by society.  Where did we go wrong?  I’m reminded every time I turn on the TV, the radio, or watch a movie that societal norms have shifted in a terrible direction and I yearn to return to a time where things had meaning.  Things made you think about love and life and the purpose of it all.  Things made you feel real emotions you had to deal with not run from and things made you want to go out and make a difference in the world. 

I guess these things are dying....and what we’re left with is a hand full of people who get it; and the masses who don’t and conform to the latest trend whatever that may be.  And if you have to ask what ‘it’ is.....I can’t help you!

So instead of Snooki's ridiculous advice of "Study hard, but party harder."  I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from one of the greatest authors to have graced this planet we call earth...

“A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences.”  -- Toni Morrison

Link to the article:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/04/rutgers-pays-snooki-more-than-toni-morrison-/1