Gather your ingredients and measure them out on a kitchen scale

Preheat oven to 177°C and line cupcake pans with paperliners and set aside

Mix lemon juice into the milk and set aside. This should be the first thing you do as you want to allow enough time for it to cuddle up and turn to buttermilk. Or you could just use 320ml buttermilk if it's easily accessible in your area

Sift together the flour, soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Sift twice to ensure full incorporation of ingredients

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This should take about 5minutes

Add eggs one at a time and beating until fully incorporated into the creamed mixture. Now add and mix in the oil, vinegar, red food colouring, and vanilla essence. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl them mix again

Alternately mix in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk in three additions, always starting and finishing with the dry mixture. Mix on medium speed after each addition but do not overmix

Pour about ¼ cup of batter into the prepared pans. Tap each pan three times on the kitchen counter to remove excess air bubbles that could create holes and cracks in the finished cakes

Bake for 17 minutes or until a toothpick knife poked into the cakes comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks before frosting as desired. I used fresh cream