Great to see Love Bakery given pride of place in the window of cookware specialist, Steamer Trading!  And what better excuse than Valentine’s Day to indulge in a delicious Red Velvet Cupcake or two? We’re all heart here, so we’re sharing this gorgeous Love Bakery recipe with you.

A ‘red velvet’ is essentially a cocoa-based, cream-cheese-frosted American delight. The actual red velvet part is the red food colouring that is used to give the cupcake base its gorgeous, rich colour. When you go through the ingredients for this recipe, don’t be afraid of the white wine vinegar. Just keep to the quantities and you won’t even know it’s there, but it’s vital to ensure that this rich, dark cupcake stays light as a feather.

A ‘red velvet’ is essentially a cocoa-based, cream-cheese-frosted American delight. The actual red velvet part is the red food colouring that is used to give the cupcake base its gorgeous, rich colour. When you go through the ingredients for this recipe, don’t be afraid of the white wine vinegar. Just keep to the quantities and you won’t even know it’s there, but it’s vital to ensure that this rich, dark cupcake stays light as a feather.

♥ RED VELVET CUPCAKE RECIPE ♥

Makes 12 cupcakes

EQUIPMENT

12-hole muffin tin
12 muffin cases
Freestanding electric mixer
Mixing bowl
Spatula
Teaspoon
Ice cream scoop, size 16
Wire rack
Medium piping bag and large star piping nozzle or palette knife

FOR THE CAKES

60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
20g cocoa powder, sifted
2 tbsp red food colouring
150g plain flour
140ml buttermilk
21/4 tsp baking powder
41/2 tsp white wine vinegar

FOR THE FROSTING

40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g full-fat cream cheese
250g icing sugar, sifted

FOR THE LOVE (optional)

Pink heart-shaped edible sprinkles
Sugar-paste roses and leaves
Silver edible glitter

From some simple cut out shapes she made the coolest of all the star signs Aquarius the Water Carrier, and once she’d started along came…

…Leo the Lion…

…and Libra the Scales!

If anyone out there is having a go at crafting these astrological cuties we’d love to see them. You can find us on Facebook or on Twitter @Ivy_Press.

The Sweat Shop Book embodies the ‘less buying – more trying!’ spirit of the original Sweat Shop Sewing Cafe in Paris,  with an an eclectic mix of sewing, knitting and crocheted projects.

The February edition of Popular Crafts is available in shops now and stars the gorgeous Tulip Dress. The next four editions of Popular Crafts will each feature a complete project from the book (including the Martena Hat – my personal favourite – channeling a real 70s vibe). What better excuse to dust off the sewing machine than free flamboyant sewing  projects? Now is the perfect time to start making in time for the summery months!

Twisted Hoodie in the March issue on sale 17^th February.

Banana Bag is the April issue on sale 16^th March

The Martena Hat in the May issue on sale 20^th April

Todti’s Jacket in the June issue on sale 18^th May (in time for Father’s Day).

Tulip Dress

Twisted Hoodie

Banana Bag

Martena Hat

Todti's Jacket

Josie Jeffery, the lovely author of our book Seedbombs and the Seedbomb Packs for Butterflies and Bees has just opened her new online shop, The Seedbomb Laboratory in time for spring.

It’s your one stop shop for all your guerrilla gardening needs, so check it out. Spring is just around the corner after all!

Feria Internacional del Libro takes place in Gudalajara, Mexico every year. The bookfair, considered one of the main events taking place in Guadalajara, transforms the whole town into a beautiful celebration of books. This year Guadalajara was the centre of the Americas, as earlier in the year, they sponsored and organised the Pan-American Games. The fair celebrated its 25th Anniversary by opening its doors to professionals from 28th till 30th November.

Over 1,900 publishing houses, representing 40 countries participated in this year’s FIL. The possibility of an alternative Spanish-speaking market attracted a larger number of UK and international publishers at the rights centre whose 102 tables were full and busy throughout the duration of the fair. So was our table 29, where the display of our beautiful Mindfulness series attracted a lot of attention and compliments!

Having attended Frankfurt and London Bookfairs, FIL Guadalajara strikes one as very different from the others. To start with, the whole organisation reflects the easy going and relaxed character of Mexican culture. Meetings seem hard, impossible sometimes to be confirmed and even if they do, they are more likely to be rescheduled. However, when they take place, exactly because they lack the stress of Frankfurt and London bookfairs, they allow a proper and perhaps more fruitful discussion. At times the whole fair feels like an endless feast, an impression aided by the entrance of the mariachis, in the expo centre, who followed by a group of people play music around the stands.

The guest country of this year’s FIL was Germany. Their stylish collective stand occupied the area at the main entrance of the expo. Wooden trees, whose paper leaves carried the visitors’ words, offered their shade to the German books displayed.

The international area of the fair, except for the rights centre, hosts the Spanish and Argentinean collective stands, as well as the stands of Spanish distributors and US publishers. Illustrations seem to play an important role at the fair and artists can exhibit their work on a wall especially dedicated to that purpose.

The national area is where all the Mexican publishers reside. As usual, our Spanish speaking partners occupied a large part of it with their impressive stands, populated mainly by works of international and national fiction. Distributor’s stands serve the purpose, in most cases, of pop up bookshops aiming at the public that visits the fair.

Finally FIL Niños spreads cheerfully at a corner of the national area. Apparently, only open to children and their parents – I somehow managed to sneak in – is an area of interactive games and activities for the little ones. This year’s theme was Alice in Wonderland and The Little Prince. Very few publishers have small stands in there, mostly serving the purpose of selling books, whereas the rest occupy the area outside the closed doors of the magical world of niños.

The traditional party of the FIL at Salon Vera Cruz signaled the end of the first day. The publishing world gathered there to dance their socks off to the Salsa and Mexican tunes till the first hours of the morning.

Need to take break from the mad Christmas rush? The partner title in the series – Seeking Silence in a Noisy World by Adam Ford – is also now available as an eBook. Drawing on techniques from the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, both books show readers how paying attention to the present can help people to change the way they feel, act and think. These are just two titles from the ever-growing Leaping Hare range which can all be found here in print and digital format.

For further uplifting tips and advice Be Mindful is a great place to start, and if you’d like to join others in creating a happier society all round then explore these ten key steps over at Action For Happiness.

And if you happen to be around, we will be in the International Rights Centre, table 29 from 28th – 30th November.

Que. 30-Second Politics – An entertaining and informative way to get up to speed with all the most influential political movements and theories in human history, and all in thirty seconds. Crammed with little pockets of political information (stuff even Cameron has never heard of), its the perfect read if your intending to throw off the outdated shackles of capitalism and establish a your own breed of Neo-Democratic Anarchy, or just planning to quiz someone on Question Time.

“30-Second Politics will help dispel the fog of mistrust and paranoia in government. It challenges political theorists of all colours to come up with no-frill, no-spin, tell-it-like-it-is explanations of the 50 most important political, -isms, -archies, and -ocracies that have pertained since the time of Perclian Athens.”

“The foundational idea of Marx’s theories was that until workers could totally control the products of their labor humans could not fully realise their own humanity.”

Part of the popular 30-Second series, this beautifully crafted book considers all of the major (and not so major) religions of the modern world, concentrating on summing each of them up as accurately and succinctly as possible.

Put together with a melange of photographs and hand drawn images this incredible book reminds, and sometimes introduces us to ‘fifty of the most thought-provoking religious beliefs’ the world over.

“30-Second religion demystifies the key beliefs of the world’s major religions, demonstrations and less widespread sects, and explains them to the general reader in half a minute, using nothing more than two pages, 300 words and one picture.”

“Nature is to be respected and celebrated- both in the rhythm of the year and the life cycle – and humans in harmony can become adepts of ‘the craft’, the use of magic.” – Mainstream Buddhism