It's become quite the tradition in our house, that we make a good fuss out of making pride cupcakes every year, to celebrate pride month!
This was one of the previous years. I think we can definitely out do it! Especially with our improved piping skills and the ridiculous amount of decorations I have!
I think it's important for the boys, without going into too much detail with them, to celebrate diversity and of course, we do it for @aimeludick who is openly on the spectrum. 
Also, who needs an excuse to bake? It's like I've got an itch I need to scratch! Baking has really become my life!
Also, this weekend, is an extra long one, with one of our most important public holidays falling on today, inspiring me to try to celebrate how far we've come as a country. Apartheid was abominable. [Youth Day] is a day we take to celebrate our children and fair access for every single one of them, to equal education. The Bantu Education act was put into place in 1953, which was designed to keep the Black people of South Africa down with a significantly lowered education standard. The point was to keep the Black population as a poor working class. Knowledge is power and the apartheid government certainly didn't want to hand the opressed black people of South Africa anything like that. It also helped to keep the black youth out of universities, the effects of which are still generationally felt today, making it impossible for them to better themselves within this system. The act also stripped the black population of the right to education in their native languages and children were forced into a system where only English and Afrikaans were used as mediums of education.
It actually out the white youth at a disadvantage, as they never got the chance to learn IsiXhosa or Zulu. This meant that the white population were unable to effectively communicate with the black population, which was and still is the majority of the population of South Africa.
This act was put into place by H.F Verwoerd, the architect of the Bantu Education Act (1953), conceived it:
“There is no place for [the African] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. It is of no avail for him to receive a training which has as its aim, absorption in the European community” The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising is revered to this day to remeber the lives of young children, lost in protest of unfair education. Children were teargassed and shot at as up to 10 000 youth marched to Orlando Stadium on Johannesburg to voice their grievances in eaceful protest. The result was the death of between 23 and 200 children. We will never know the real numbers as the government did everything in their power to cover up the massacre.
@jasperdick wrote a beautiful song which - although this isn't a music post - it's relevant and I'll share it with you here, it reminds us that "united we stand and divided we fall": Mamela - (Listen) @jasperdick - performed by MobeyDick, Supported by Kathy Eggers on Voila and David Greenwood on Guitar, live at the Barleycorn 2024:
The venue was the Kelvin Grove, a notoriously upper class, members only club, reserved for the aristocracy of the Cape. It could still be seen on this evening as we played for an audience of that was 99% white upper class. https://youtu.be/aBcsfcZOf_k?si=bcnOGAbr5XqlDZKW
Nelson Mandela made this historical speech at the Rivonia Trials in 1964, where he was facing a huge number of charges including treason. Upon his plea of guilty or not, he delivered his famous "I am prepared to Die" speech, which embodied everything we are talking about here. It was the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the dream of equality:
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
— Nelson Mandela, at the conclusion of his speech[4]
He spent the next 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island, in Cape Town. He only escaped the death penalty as the apartheid government knew it would simply make him a martyr and anger the people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbbYf9g4qLE&t=22s&ab_channel=SABCNews
There is still much work to be done to atone for the sins of our fathers.
The Gay population was also targeted by apartheid. Gay marriage only became legal and the right to adopt children were introduced in 1996 . Being outwardly gay during the apartheid era would also see you locked in jail.
Pride month is about celebrating gender equality and freedom of sexuality across the spectrum, but for be, who worked in the "Gay" district of Cape Town for many years, where I ran a number of awesome restaurants, designed for this demographic, I will never forget my first pride march. I cannot wait to take Aime next year. The spirit was overwhelmingly beautiful as people from all walks of life, different colours, sexualities, religions, it didn't matter, took to the streets and showered everyone in glitter. I have never experienced a day of complete and utter love.
In my own way, I guess I'm weaving the two, Pride Month and Youth Day together to remind us to love and celebrate each other.
And nothing brings people together better than cake!
So, yesterday we were joined by Layla, one of Aime's best friends from school, and we got going with the bases and the first layer of my heart cake!
The theme for the heart shaped cake and the heart shaped cupcakes is :"Love is Love," The cupcakes, which rose ridiculously well, We will probably go full rainbow. I'll leave that up to Aime to decorate while I focus on the hearts. 
I've asked @zakludick to go and get me some strawberry/ mixed berry jam for the filling of the heart cake, which I still need to make a top layer for and I'll use the remaining batter to make some more hearts. They are tricky though! and I still need to figure out which way is up! 🤦♀️ The mold has some lovely designs at the bottom and if you get the batter just right, it leaves beautiful indentations. It seems a bit sad to just cover them up with icing, but since that side is far more narrow than the other side, plus doing it this way means gravity is also on our side. The other option is to level out the cupcakes, which I will be doing with the heart cake. That way I'll have a flat and wider surface to work with. today 
We will see what I decide to do later today! Watch this space!
