Father's day!

Although Fathers day has been and gone I thought I'd share a cupcake recipe that I did for my dad on fathers day, but they would also be fun to make for any other special occasion. Recently I have been watching an Irish family called the SacconeJoly's on YouTube, where Anna (the woman) has been uploading baking recipes onto her channel. This recipe was one of her recent cupcake recipes and they were too cute not to make myself!! However, I did make a few changes as I couldn't find some of her ingredients and also my dad prefers vanilla cupcakes to chocolate.

Cupcakes: 
- 150g Butter/ Margarine
- 150g Caster sugar
- 150g Self raising flour
- 3 Eggs
Icing: 
- 50g butter
- 100g Icing sugar
Toppings: 
I used ground coconut covered in green edible powder instead of green sprinkles.
- Round mints
- Straws
- Post it notes
- Ground plain biscuits (e.g. digestives, rich tea etc)

Method: 
For making cupcakes I just use a standard creaming method as I feel that this creates light, airy, spongy cakes. 
1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line your cupcake tin(s) with cases.
2. Place the (softened) butter/margarine into a mixing bowl along with the sugar,and mix together with a wooden spoon until fully combined and of a creamy consistency.
3. Place the eggs into the bowl one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each egg.
 NOTE: Don't worry if the mixture curdles, this is due to the eggs being too cold but this does not effect the cakes in any way, once the flour is added it will go back to normal.
4. Next add the flour and fold in with a metal spoon until the ingredients are all combined.
5. Finally place the mixture into the cupcake cases until they are about 3/4 full.
6. Place in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Topping: 
1. Place the (softened) butter into a bowl along with the icing sugar and mix until combined/ of a smooth consistency.
2. Once the cupcakes are out of the oven and cooled completely, cover the top of each cupcake with a thin layer of the buttercream. This is used as a base for the other toppings to stick to.
3. Place the coconut into a small bowl and cover with the green dust until it is of a grass colour. Then place this on one side of the cupcake as the green.
4. Then finely crush the biscuits and place on the other half of the cupcake as the bunker.
5. Cut your straws to about 5cm and on the sticky side of your post it notes cut a small triangle. Place the triangle on the end of the straw (as a flag) and place in the grass side of the cake.
6. Finally, place the round mint in the (bunker) biscuit side of the cake as the golf ball.

Anna Saccone's YouTube Video of these cupcakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IazBl4XXw58

SacconeJolys channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxJrnvfqSSvly5hiq2Fe68g

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this fun, easy recipe :) 

May favourites!

As we are approaching the end of  May now I thought it was about time I did another favourites post! Here are five items that I have been loving throughout May!

The first item is a perfume that I've had for quite a few years now, but have been wearing more often recently. This is the DKNY be delicious perfume, I am not too keen on overpowering smelling perfumes, and this one is defiantly not that, it is light and suitable to be worn not only in the day but on a night out too!

£34.99 Boots

The next item is a trio of Body shop lip balms that I received for Christmas from my brother. They came in a cracker shaped packaging that twisted at either end. Obviously it's not Christmas any more (sigh), which means that they do not currently sell these exact same lip balms any more. However, they do have similar ones such as the Honeymania lip balm, which is £4, or a similar collection called Born Lippy pot lip balms which come in Satsuma, Raspberry, Strawberry, Passionberry and Watermelon which are £2 each. I have been loving these lip balms as they smell amazing, they are not too thick and make your lips look healthy and shiny.

The third item I have been loving not only throughout May but since December 2013 is a No7 eyeshadow. I received this eye shadow in a gift set from No7 when buying multiple items from them and cannot find it on their website, but this is defiantly worth looking out for if they have similar offers in the future. It is a brownie purple colour with a slight shimmer. I've found that works nicely on top of a lighter base eyeshadow, in the outer corner and in the crease of your eyelid. I have loved this eyeshadow throughout May as it is not too dark and can be worn everyday or on a night out. 

 Another Item I have been loving in May are lip crayons. I have two, one from Revlon which is a dark red ,and the other is from No7 which is a light pink. I love wearing these under my Kate Moss red Lipstick from Revlon (£5.49), and my Brighton Rock lipstick from Topshop (£8). They are easy to apply and help the lipstick last longer, as I apply one of these as a base coat.

The last item is a top I was bought recently from River Island. I found that as the days were getting warmer I did not have much clothing suitable for the summer, or for festivals (as festival season is approaching). The top was £20 and has detailed cutouts at the front and buttons up the back.

I hope you like some of these items I have been loving throughout May!

The Originals and The Vampire Diaries!!

WARNING: Do not read this post if you have not seen the finale episodes of The Originals or The Vampire Diaries... MAJOR spoilers ahead.


So, today I thought I would do a slightly different post to my usual and do a kind of review on the season finales of The Originals, season one and The Vampire Diaries, season five.

Finally, the baby has arrived and is healthy and happy....well kind of. The Witches plan to sacrifice the baby to bring back the final harvest girl, did come with a few to many shocks...Klaus being strapped to the wall and poor Hayley being killed! Who was expecting that! But not to worry she did come back alive to Elija's delight...like most characters that die in The Vampire diaries. Now I'm not going to ramble on about the details of the episode but lets just say it was pretty awesome for a season finale, with Rebekah making an appearance at the end in a scene that lets face it we all cried a little at.

I have been a fan of The Vampire Diaries since 2012 and have (of course) chosen a side to ship...Stelena (Obviously). So when Stefan was killed in the penultimate episode of season five, you could imaging my shock and despair. However, Stelena fans are pleased to see Stefan welcomed back in the finale...but not without a few shocks along the way. The list kept getting longer and longer, we just knew that something was going to go wrong. There was a little part of me that did want Lexi to get a second chance, but as Marco tried to escape the other side I'm sure glad she didn't! I was quite upset to see that the beloved Aunt Jenna did not make an appearance though...I guess the writers have forgotten all about her! I have to admit though, the final scene when Elena is distraught over losing Damon and his little speech to her even though she couldn't hear did get me a bit emotional. However, we were left on a MAJOR cliff hanger whether or not Damon and Bonnie will ever return, I'm sure everyone is asking, did they find peace? what's happened to the other side? Is there a hidden meaning in Gram's message? or has the other side completely collapsed? Well I'm hoping all my questions will be revealed in season 6...but we'll have to wait till October to find out!

I hope you enjoyed the season finale's as much as I did and that I didn't bore anyone with this post :S

Formula One Cake

I was planning on making a post of Easter recipes (creme egg brownies & hot cross buns) however, I have not really found the time to make these in between revision.

So it was my brother and dad's birthday yesterday (19th April) and so I thought why not take on the challenge to make them a formula one car cake. I'm no professional cake maker so this was defiantly a big challenge for me to take on.
I started off by making two 23cm square cakes and sandwiching them together with butter cream and jam. I then covered the cake in a thin layer of butter cream to ensure that the fondant icing would be smooth. I covered it in white fondant and placed 2.5cm by 2.5cm black squares round the outside, which created a pattern similar to the flag used at Formula One races.

A road was made down the middle of the cake with black fondant, and green fondant was used on either side as grass.
Now we get onto the hard part...the car. I first found a template of a basic f1 car outline.  Which I used to cut out the body of the car.

To make the seat I cut a semi circle of cake which became thinner towards the bottom and another square piece which sloped towards the back of the cake. I again covered the whole shape in butter cream and covered it in grey fondant, adding extra detail to the shapes by shaping the fondant.
To make the wheels I used rice crispy squares and cut them into circles using a pastry cutter. These were again covered in a thin layer of butter cream and covered in black fondant. I made an indent in the middle of each wheel and placed a piece of grey fondant in this indent. The front and back wings were made out of pieces of cardboard covered in fondant (I thought it may be a bit difficult to get cake to stand up). However, I've have now thought that these could have been made of wafers covered in fondant.
Finally, detail was added by using red icing and strips of red and black fondant to make the car look like a McLaren Formula One car.

I hope you liked this post and that it has maybe inspired you to challenge your baking skills and try out something new that could be a great surprise or gift for a family member or friend. I hope that I can make more celebration cakes like this in the future and share them with you as I learn :)

Exams!

I am currently studying for my AS level exams in Food Technology, Psychology, English Literature and ICT. As exams are getting closer and closer I though I share some of my ways to deal with stress and how to handle revision.

I've found this year I've become more and more stressed with the workload than ever before. This is most likely because of the huge leap between GCSE and A-levels. The year has gone so fast and I haven't really had much time breathe and take  a step back.

Here are ten ways I've found to deal with stress and revision:
1. Make a revision timetable for each day
2. Take frequent short breaks
3. Revise in 20 minute blocks
4. Don't forget to go out into the 'real world' and have some fun
5. Make revision fun- create games for yourself, get others to test you or have a revision day with your friends.
6. Keep motivated and attention by having a glass of water while doing revision.
7. Eat healthily- try not to slip into bad eating habits during exam period as this can lower your performance.
8. Sleep well- Don't stay up all night revising.
9. Keep on exercising- This keeps you awake and can act as a stress release.
10. Plan something exciting with family or friends for after exams that you can look forward to. This could be going out for a meal, going to a festival, having a party, a movie night with friends or even a family meal.

I hope that these little tips help with whatever exams you are doing if they are end of unit/year tests, GCSE exams, ALevel exams or even degree exams. Good Luck! :)