Monday 12 December 2016

CHRISTMAS FAIR | STONOR PARK

With a massive hangover, I met up with a couple of girls that I used to work with and headed down to Henley to the Stonor Park Christmas Fair.

It's the first time i've ever been to a christmas fair (other than Winter Wonderland) and I was really impressed. It was all really well done. Stonor House is a beautiful big manor house which we were able to walk around. We were restricted as to where we could go when we were inside, but they're decorated it all christmassy an historic. It was stunning.

Sunday 4 December 2016

RECIPE | FRANGIPANE MINCE PIES

I love baking and I love trying new things, especially when it's a twist on something I already love to bake. I saw this recipe on the countryliving website and because my family love mincepies and anything almond/marzipan flavoured I knew they'd be excited to try these!

200+ MINCE PIES?!

It's become a tradition at Christmas that my mum and I bake over 200 mince pies each year.

"Why so many?" I hear you ask.

My mum is a caretaker/cleaner for a lot of elderly people and instead of buying them all naff gifts we always bake for them - they always appreciate a home made gift! Alongside that, we've always taken them to family get-togethers over christmas as well as each taking some in for colleagues too. On top of all that, we need some for ourselves too right!!

We don't make our own mincemeat (we actually use Sainsburys own brand) but we always mix a teaspoon or so of brandy to give it a little kick! Funnily enough, we also don't follow a recipe for the pastry, it's just something we've made enough to know when it's going to work and when it's not.

Instead of making 200 of the same mincepie, we decided to make 50/50 (ish) of standard pies with a little pastry star and the other half with the spiced orange crumble that we made last year.

Quick tip: If you sprinkle icing sugar over them when they're cool, it covers a multitude of sins!

These are the little ones that didn't pass QA!

I can promise you now that despite having baked over 200 already, we'll have to make more at some point..

Monday 28 November 2016

HALLOWEEN WEEKEND


If you follow me on Instagram, (if not then you should be) you’ll know that I bake something almost every weekend, Halloween weekend was no exception of course but with GBBO having inspired me to challenge myself a little more, I decided to try and make something i’ve never made before! 

Chocolate webs!

I’d seen a load of things using piped chocolate on Pinterest lately and as i’m currently really enjoying learning how to pipe, I thought i’d give it a go. I used a tube of white chocolate buttons (You know the ones that come out for Christmas) and melted them in the microwave for just under a minute. Having never done this before I was a little worried that the chocolate was just going to run straight out of the nozzle but it was thicker that I first thought and I swear it went on forever!! I managed to make so many little webs and spiders from just one tube of chocolate!


Monday 31 October 2016

FOREST HOLIDAYS | ARGYLL, SCOTLAND

This is our second trip to a Forest Holidays retreat and it was just as good as the first. I was anxious that, having been to the Deerpark retreat in Cornwall last October and having an absolutely brilliant time, that this wouldn’t be as good - I’ve revisited places before and been disappointed when they weren’t the same! But, thankfully, despite the 7 hour drive and 6am alarm on a Monday morning we had another fabulous holiday and will definitely continue returning to the Forest Holiday retreats. 


We left really early on Monday morning so as not to waste an entire day on the road, it meant we had a bit of an evening to unpack and settle in (obviously test out the hot tub) and relax before starting our holiday properly on the Tuesday.

Friday 30 September 2016

STORY TIME | SCOLIOSIS

I've seen a lot of vlogs entitled "story time" lately, as a way for content creators to share a more personal story and raise awareness for a particular issue/condition that they have experienced. So, I wanted to do that same for something that I have had first-hand experience with.

What is scoliosis?

Scoliosis, the abnormal twisting and curvature of the spine, is a progressive medical condition with no cure. It affects approximately 1 in 35 people and often presents itself, or worsens, during the adolescence growth spurt and is more common in females than it is in males. It's not uncommon for people with this condition to experience no/very little pain and require no treatment at all. However, if left unchecked scoliosis can result in lifelong surgeries, disability, chronic pain and in some rare cases it can be life threatening. 

There is very little awareness for scoliosis considering the amount of people that are affected by it, because of that, I wanted to share "my story" to help shed some light on it. 


Tuesday 27 September 2016

RECIPE | APRICOT CRUMBLE SQUARES

One of the old ladies my mum works for is always gifting her the most random things! She's the sweetest, most thoughtful lady. This week was a punnet of fresh apricots so as it's not usually a fruit we'd buy, we thought we might as well combine it with this weekends bake. A little flick through the cookbooks and we found a recipe for apricot crumble squares!


Tuesday 20 September 2016

RECIPE | BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Confession! I've never successfully made muffins, that both looked and tasted like actual muffins.

So, at the weekend I gave it another go. This time using one of Paul Hollywoods recipes from the BBC Food website.



Serves: 8 muffins

Ingredients:
110g plain flour
110g butter
65g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2tsp baking powder
125g blueberries
pinch of nutmeg

double cream to serve

Method:

  • Cream the butter and sugar together 
  • Slowly add the eggs and mix for 3 minutes 
  • Add the flour, baking powder and nutmeg - stir to combine
  • Refrigerate for at least an hour, preferably overnight (I probably left the mixture in the fridge for 1 1/2 hours in total)
  • Place a spoonful of the muffin mixture into each case, filling each to just over half way
  • Stud each muffin with approx 8 blueberries
  • Bake in an oven set at 200Âșc for 20 mins or until golden on top


To my surprise they actually turned out okay. I wouldn't say they were exactly like muffins but more like blueberry cupcakes. Nevertheless the recipe works and they taste really good!

When it came to eating them, I reheated mine for 30 seconds in the microwave and then dolloped a healthy serving of cream on top! Delish! 

Do you have any tips for making muffins that look and taste like muffins, let me know in the comments below.

Wednesday 14 September 2016

RECIPE | MARY BERRY CHERRY CAKE

My Nan celebrated her birthday last week and it's tradition in her flats for residents to bring cakes to "coffee morning" on the Monday. Mum and I baked a lemon drizzle cake, some cupcakes and a cherry cake for her to take down with her.

This is one of my favourite cakes to make, it's simple to make and super yummy! I always turn to Mary Berry or GoodFood for recipes for anything I make, this recipe is one of Mary Berry's and just happened to feature in the Great British Bake Off back in 2014!

I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Wednesday 15 June 2016

BELLINTER HOUSE | IRELAND

2016 marks the year of 21st birthdays, back in April was my best friends birthday and to celebrate another friend and I planned a little get-away for her. We decided on Bellinter House, which is a beautiful country, spa house in Ireland. Originally we’d planned to fly out midweek and return at the weekend but due to me being an idiot and not checking my passport was still in date, it was all postponed by 1 day. (And cost me a small fortune to rectify!)
After a hectic beginning to the break (& a quick dash into LDN for a new passport) we stayed at a hotel near Gatwick airport the night before our flight where we were able to start the celebrations. I ended up with a pretty rotten hangover for the flight out!
Once we got to Dublin, we spent the day in the town centre wandering round and ‘pub-hopping’. We also visited the Guinness Storehouse which was really good fun. There’s was a lot we didn’t get to see/do with only being in Dublin centre for the day. We were limited to how much time we could spend at the Storehouse due to needing to be back at the airport to collect our luggage! But, we did ensure we made it to the tasting session and collecting our free Guinness from the Gravity bar! Although, as it happens none of us were big fans of the drink, so opted for 1 Guinness between the 3 of us!