Lemon Heaven

There are a lot of things I don't like, lemons are one of them, but I think that's the case for most people, unless you are 50 shades of cray.

On Saturday, I was feeling blue, and then I was feeling yellow. If you follow me on twitter you saw that over the Easter holidays I wanted to bake lemon cupcakes, however I was so poor it wasn't even funny, like at all. So I decided that when I came back, after all my assignments were in, I would make them! Sufficed to say, I was feeling a little down on Saturday and you know what I do when I'm sad...BAKE. Not the healthiest cure but its the best one I know! That and friends! So my friend Dan came round and we baked!

Turns out guys (my friend Josh was the same) really like using mixers and literally get entranced by them...

Wanna make em too? Check out this very easy gluten-free recipe that I adapted for full fat and completely unhealthy purposes and enjoy!

Also I love my housemates, every time I make a batch of cupcakes they say they're the best cupcakes they've ever had and that I've ever made...I see a pattern emerging here!

Oh, and queue the mouthwatering pictures:

These cupcakes were sweet and perfectly fluffy, with beautifully creamy icing. Essentially, my housemates were right, these are the best cupcakes I have ever made.

I've been listening to quite a lot of new music but there's one track that I keep playing that just puts a smile on my face when I listen to it. There are no words but its fun and I'll definitely be listening to it throughout the summer! I hope you like it too:

Until next time (which probably won't be until I've finished writing 5500 words this week)!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Matlida taught me how to spell 'difficulty', Gwen Stefani taught me how to spell 'bananas', and who said watching TV wasn't educational?

As you may have already guessed, this blog post is banana based. If you read my last blog post, you know I've been on a bit of a health kick recently and giving up delicious food has sucked BIG TIME. However, I get by with a little help from my friends (yup, I went there) and the internet (Instagram, I mean Foodstagram more specifically). As a result, I've found some delicious recipes to satisfy my desire for my bad food that tastes very very good. 

Today, it was ice cream made of banana, with quite literally a drop of lactose free milk and a spoonful of peanut butter. I got my recipe from here: The Kitchn

The result - delicious! My mum can't stop going on about it, "no sugar, how much milk? That's sugar free ice cream?" Yes Mum, yes it is, and its like heaven in your mouth too!

As per usual, some pictures to make your mouth water before you go out grab some bananas to make this yourself!

Its coming around to summer, and whilst I'm not usually one for making summer playlists, there's a lot of new (to me)  music I've been enjoying recently that I've put into a playlist. Here's one of them, enjoy.

til' next time!

Changes

Years of experience have taught me that if I have no real motivation, I don't end up sticking to doing something. I'm really trying to make plans and stick to them, and that includes not sitting around at home on my laptop 24-7 during summer.

As a result, I've made a list of things I want to do this summer, and they include visiting my sister in Sweden, ride Boris bikes (although technically they're Barclay's Bikes) and see a ballet. As well as trying to change what I do outside the house, I'm also trying to make active changes to my health. So recently I've started doing a 25 minute workout each morning that includes fives minutes of jogging, push ups, squats, sit ups, and skipping or a cool down. Since I'm going to visit my sister in Sweden in the summer, I'd like to be able to wear a bikini on the beach and feel comfortable in it! I'm also trying to control my portion sizes, and make sure that I do at least some walking during the day.

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I've been trying to eat healthy, which is expensive, but worth it! I feel a lot better and I find getting up early in the morning easier and easier. Getting a good nights sleep and drinking plenty of water helps too. I also made a cheeky video of me making my chilli.

Breakfast tings.

Lunch.

Dinner is served.


There's a lot of music I've been discovering lately, mostly thanks to Shazam and adverts with very cool music. However the one some I can't get out of my head and that I've pretty much been playing non-stop is Ed Sheeran's new song 'Sing'. Its so catchy, and has a JT vibe to it that I love. Sufficed to say I'm definitely obsessed with it and I'll be playing it until I'm tired of it! Enjoy!

Until next time!

Where Have I Been All Your Life?

So...I've been slacking, I know, but I have my reasons. Rehearsals, miscommunications with the website I write for, more rehearsals, assigments. Blah blah blah.

You know what, no. Truth is, I've been a sucky blogger recently (for almost three months but numbers are irrelevant) and there's actually no legitimate excuse. I kinda suck :(

I'm sorrrrrryyyyyy! So lets catch up...

Since we last spoke, I've made an Ombre chocolate cake, some very vanilla cupcakes, and a beautiful Batman Victoria Sandwich cake. Thats right, a Batman cake, and an Ombre cake. Like the hairstyle. Uh huh. 

Okay so apart from baking I've also been interacting with other humans...wanna see?

So according to my instagram, my life has recently consisted of, rehearsals, a lot of the colour red that I've only just noticed as I'm writing this, healthy cereal, a picture where I actually look normal whilst smiling and strawberry daquiri cocktails at Turtle Bay! 

Since I've been away for so long (I'm really sorry guys), rather than giving you just one song, I've made a playlist of all the music I've been listening to recently! Enjoy! (And don't judge me for my mainstreamness mmkai?)

I'll be baaaaaaaaaaaack (more regularly) Its easter so I'll try and get my bake on in between writing assignments (because even though its easter, I still have about 8000 words to write)

Adios amigos!

This Isn't Just Any Cupcake...

This is a KIT-KAT AND CARAMEL CUPCAKE.

Perfection. No really, These cupcakes are (or shall I say were because they're all gone) the best cupcakes I have ever made and tasted. They have surpassed (or so my housemates tell me) my carrot cake and peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes!

These cupcakes are moist inside, rich in flavour and have a cheeky surprise in there too!
This glorious recipe comes from Chocolate Moosey and is going straight into the recipe notebook I got for Secret Santa last year! (saying and writing that is highly odd and will probably be until the 31st of December 2014)

Prepare to dribble...

Surprise!

I also love the way these pictures turned out! I actually took a lot of care with these, particularly because these cupcakes deserved the best presentation ever, and because I'm trying to be better with taking pictures of my baking creations! iPhones actually take some of the best pictures I've seen, which means there's no need for me to buy a £400 camera just yet (not that a student should be spending their money on one anyway)!

I love, James Vincent McMorrow. I loved his first album and I love his new one Post Tropical too! The second song is a new found favourite of mine.

Trying to be adventurous and inexpensive with my baking is near to impossible, but I'm trying!
Until next time!

 

That New, New

I used to find the New Year so simplistic, so boring, so repetitive. However as I've grown up, and grown out of my cyncism, I;ve also become a lot more positive. Obviously, I know that it being a new year doesn't erase mistakes you've made or automatically mean that your new year diet will work, but nowadays I do take it as an opportunity to pick particular things to improve in my life...yeah okay so I made a few new year's resolutions, don't judge me! I haven't done them in years.

One of my "new things" to do was to try more daring recipes and decorations. Not to be so scared of being a little adventurous with my baking choices! This Christmas, I started that initiative a little early, I made a four layer carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Now, maybe the recipe itself doesn't sound very adventurous, but the decorating, the idea of making a four layer cake, with extremely creamy and not very stable cream cheese icing, that was the adventurous part. For me at least.

Trying new things does not come naturally to me, so I was extremely happy with the way this cake turned out! I made it on the Monday, and on Wednesday when it was finally time to eat it, it was still moist! The sign a very good cake I'd say! Queue an excessive amount of pictures: (sorry you know what I'm like)

In terms of music, I've pretty much been listening to Beyonce's new album non-stop (okay well not exactly) since it came out, so I've been thinking for about 10 minutes now about which song to put here...and then I remembered that I've been listening to a lot of Motown recently (seriously those were the good old days of music), so here's one of my favourites, enjoy!

Since I have only one exam out of all my housemates and so I've been tasked with baking (they're paying for the ingredients!) for them while they study, I like to call it a little incentive! So expect two posts a week at least for the next few weeks!  Until then!

I'm Dreaming of a Red, Red Christmas

Last week at uni, was House Christmas. Last year we went traditional, had a delicious turkey crown with equally delicious roast potatoes and vegetables and had a lot of fun! However this year, because we really couldn't be bothered waiting for a turkey to cook and because we thought we'd do something different, as well as having to cater to a vegetarian among us, we decided that we'd all make different dishes, something we think we all make well. One of my housemates, Shannon, we make fun of for all the gourmet-looking dishes she makes and all the expensive food she buys. Granted, its all worth it, because she not only made delicious eggnog, but she also made a mouthwatering spinach and cheese filo pastry pie that I am still dreaming about today. Yes, it was that good!

I made, as you can probably guess, a cake. I made my favourite cake, and had to do so without the help of my trusty mixer :( This included making the icing and having to beat the butter with a very short wooden spoon for about 10 minutes. Let's just say I have muscles now. Anyway I'd wanted to do something a little different with the icing, so I used some food colouring to make the icing inside green and the icing on the outside red! The icing on the inside wasn't as green as I'd wanted it to be but it was still clearly green! I thought red and green because they're typical Christmas colours...right? 

Cue an excessive and probably unnecessary number of pictures of the cake I made along with a picture of the stupendous amount of food that six people had to consume (we failed by the way, we didn't finish it all I promise, there was near enough to half left over!). 

Oh yeah...did I forget to mention that I also made 6 blueberry cupcakes with matching icing to go with the cake? Oh I must have forgotten... ;)

So this was our dinner, minus some chips that were still in the oven. So we had Curry, Lasagne, 3 different Pizzas, Garlic bread and Camembert (YUM), Spinach and Feta filo pastry pie, Mince Pies, Naan bread, chips, Chocolate Cake and Cupcakes (although the cake was eaten the next day cause we were seriously stuffed!) So yeah, we ate a lot of food and waiting for it all to be done was incredibly difficult when I'd only eaten breakfast all day! Oh but it was worth the wait! My stomach has never been that satisfied in my life! Sooooo worth the wait!

Then we had secret santa and one of my best friend's Jack got me and he got me the most thoughtful gift I think I've ever received. I love this book! Inside its got tabs for breakfasts, desserts, dinners, lunches, baking etc where I can write all my favourite recipes and there are even some slips for pictures too! Its just PERFECT!

All in the evening was absolutely perfect and I laughed so much and the people I live with are genuinely some of my favourite people! This first semester has already been so much fun and I can't wait to see what 2014 will bring!

Also last night I watched a really interesting documentary about back up singers called "20 Feet From Stardom" and it was incredible! Other than documentaries narrated by David Attenborough I',m not their biggest fan so this was a very interesting one to watch! You should give it watch if you get the chance! Below is a song by one of the people from the documentary that fits the season nicely!

I probably won't be posting on here until after Christmas and New Years so I hope you have a truly amazing and really enjoyable Christmas and New Year! Here's to 2014!