Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for...

Homemade Jaffa Cakes

New goodies to try from the #NottsBBMeet

Getting invited to a teaching interview

The sun shining

friends

What are you thankful for this Thursday:?

dotcomgiftshop wishlist

Today I discovered dotcomgiftshop and I wanted to share some things I've put on my wishlist for when I have a flat/house of my own (hopefully soon).

Tea and Sympathy Mug: How cute is this? I love it because I love Tea, and sometimes everyone needs a little sympathy! £3.95

Tea and Biscuits Please Mug: I love the tattoo print on this, fits with my blog doesn't it?! £3.95

Save The Planet Mug: This is so cute and I love the line at the bottom 'drink more tea, make more love'. £3.95

Ivory egg holder: I've never really seen the need for an egg holder but this is pretty cute! £6.95

Set of 6 Spice Tins: These are the cutest thing ever and I'd love a pastel theme to my kitchen. £9.95.

Tea, Coffee and Sugar Tins: These matching tins are lovely. £12.95

That's not even half of my wishlist but I couldn't resist sharing these, maybe I'll post some more soon. I cannot wait to be able to buy things like this!

Eton Mess cupcakes

Eton Mess Cupcakes-

Recently a neighbour brought round some homegrown raspberries and strawberries, of course all handpicked strawberries aren't perfect and some needed surgery and a good wash. Anyway, I decided to make Eton mess cupcakes.

Cupcakes- makes 12

4oz margarine

4oz caster sugar

2 eggs

4oz self raising flour

-combine margarine and sugar until creamy

-add each egg individually and mix with a pinch of flour to prevent curdling

-add remaining flour and mix

-spoon into cupcake cases

-bake in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes at 180c

Then I made a regular vanilla buttercream

8oz icing sugar

4oz butter

splash of milk

-combine and add milk to bind

-pipe or spread onto cupcakes

I then added broken meringue pieces, strawberry pieces and raspberries.

Of course you could serve them like this but I decided they weren't messy enough!

Pre-drizzle

I then took a couple of handfuls of fruit and blitzed them, I passed it through a sieve to get rid of seeds and added a little icing sugar to thicken and sweeten. Then I simply drizzled the cupcakes with the compote I had made and put the rest in the freezer!

And there we have it, yummy! Let me know if you give them a go.

Cadbury chocolate cupcakes

Cadbury's chocolate cupcakes-

My trusty chocolate cupcake recipe- makes 12

4oz margarine

4oz caster sugar

2 eggs

3oz self raising flour

1oz cocoa

-mix sugar and margarine until creamy

-add each egg individually with a pinch of flour to avoid curdling

-add remaining flour and cocoa

-spoon into cake cases

-cook in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 mins at 180c.

My usual chocolate icing is just butter, icing sugar and cocoa but I find it's hard to get a nice colour without the icing being over cocoa-ey. So this time I used melted chocolate for a more indulgent taste.

Buttercream-

6oz Icing sugar

3oz butter

splash of milk

40g bar of Cadbury's 'Dairy Milk', melted

1 tablespoon cocoa (to colour)

-combine icing and butter

-add a splash of milk to bind

-add melted chocolate and cocoa and mix

-pipe or spoon onto cupcakes

I used white chocolate stars and edible glitter to decorate.

Simple but yummy, Enjoy!

Healthy date flapjacks

So this is a recipe my mum has been making for years and I love it!

200g Dates

1 cup oil (vegetable or sunflower)

1 cup concentrated apple juice- we get this from a local health shop and it's like a syrup consistency

1 cup water

8 cups oats

Firstly cover the dates in a small pan with water. Allow to boil until all water has adsorbed and dates are soft.

Next, add the oil, concentrated apple juice and water to a pan and boil.

Take off the heat and add the oats gradually, stirring well.

Line and grease a rectangular tin and add half the flapjack mixture. Smooth out with your hands so it's level and in all the corners!

Then layer on the dates with a spoon, spreading equally.

Finally add the second half of the flapjack mixture and level out.

Place in a preheated oven at 190°C for 35 minutes until golden brown.

Done! The flapjack has a lovely squidgy texture and is very tasty. I actually used concentrated apple & blackcurrant juice this time and it worked just as well. You could also miss out the layer of dates but I think it adds extra yummyness!

Busy week

So this week started with a visit to Lancaster with friends to visit another friend. We explored the Uni campus and found new lunch places and cupcake cafes.

Then I was preparing for this weekend. Yesterday we had a Strawberry Tea at the pub I work at, in aid of Breast Cancer Care. I made lots of jam filled strawberry cupcakes.

Everyone at work loved my cakes so much that I was put in charge of organising the cake table. It went down very well and we raised £500 for Breast Cancer Care.

Yesterday evening we had an Italian night at home. We drank Bellini, ate pasta, aubergine parmigiana and ice cream! Then we watched Young Victoria, a not-very-Italian but good film.

Today is Father's Day. We have a nice meal planned this evening but my presents to my Dad this morning were Lego cupcakes and Avengers tickets.

I'm also feeling rather organised with my new summer calender of exciting things to look forward to.

You may or may not have noticed that I'm instagram-ing everything!

Diamond Jubilee Weekend

To prepare the Jubilee weekend I made Red, White and Blue muffins with Strawberry and Blueberry.

I actually traveled back to my uni house for my housemates birthday this weekend and made him a trifle.

In honour of his birthday we went for lunch at Las Iguanas where they gave him a free drink which had edible glitter in!

It was lovely to see everybody so patriotic with bunting and flags. I watched the Jubilee concert on TV which was fantastic, made me proud to be british!