Fridays Poem...?

I'm thinking of trying something new...
I want to be able to put something into this blog every week, so I've been trying to come up with an idea that ensures I do :)
I've seen 'Things I Love Thursday' and such, but what if I love things on a Sunday...?
So, after some pondering, I thought maybe it would be nice for us to indulge ourselves in some poetry, sophisticated, I know. And after that I'll pop off to watch some You've Been Framed...

Here's a nice little one, hope you enjoy it...

"Trying to Sleep Late on a Saturday Morning in November"

In the living room walter Cronkite
prepares us for the moon shot.
We are approaching
the third and final phase, this
is the last exercise.
I settle down,
far down into the covers.

My son is wearing his space helmet.
I see him move down the long airless corridor,
his iron boots dragging.

My own feet grow cold.
I dream of yellow jackets and near
frostbite, two hazards
facing the whitefish fishermen
On Satus Creek.

But there is something moving
there in the frozen reeds
something on its side that is
slowly filling with water.
I turn onto my back.
All of me is lifting at once,
as if it were impossible to drown.

--Raymond Carver

Well, I hope this works out.
See you next week with another random poem.
Cheers xx

Happy Halloween (From Yesterday)

Thought i might share some 'scary' pictures with you all :)

My Spooky chocolate & orange cupcakes for some lucky trick or treaters.

I liked the ghost, whoda thought that an old sheet and a torch could look so cool.

I think we might have been the only people on our road that put up Halloween decorations, we may have also put them up a day early, cause, yah know, that's how we roll...

Oh my precious pumpkins, spent at least a couple of hours carving these up, wasn't too bad though, got to keep all the seeds and roast em up, yummy.

Hope you all had a suitably horrific Halloween, now we shall have to survive the next month being reminded that its nearly Christmas, *sigh*, best start getting ready :P
Toodles xx

Aint Nothing Better Than Chocolate Cake

Hurrah, half-term starts now, good times.
However work tomorrow means no lie-in, bad times.
No worries though, it means i get a chance to bake some yummy cupcakes...



Ingredients:

100g Plain Flour
20g Cocoa Powder
140g Caster Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter @ room temp
120ml milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

How to..

1) Cream together the cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sugar, flour and butter with an electric mixer or hand-held whisk until its a sandy consistency and well combined.

2) Whisk the egg, milk and vanilla in a jug, then pour about half of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until it starts to come together, then add the rest of the milk. Be carefull not to overmix or it wont rise as well.

3) Line a cupcake tray with paper cases and spoon the mixture until the cases are sorund two-thirds full and bake for 20-25 mins on gas 3/170 c/ 325 f. Make sure they're bake by doing the skewer test and leave to cool on a wire rack.

4) Once cool, frost and decorate. I used this recipe for a chocolate frosting, but you could use a vanilla or cream cheese one. 300g icing sugar, 100g unsalted butter, 40g cocoa powder & 40ml milk. Beat the butter, sugar and cocoa powder together, slowly add the milk until you get the right consistancy, be generous with the frosting :)



Enjoy, hopefully i'll update a more often now its half-term, desperately seeking some tinned pumpkin puree for a pie, any ideas?
Recipe taken from the bible aka The Hummingbird Bakery.
Cheers xx

Pretty Shiny Goodness

I believe i am Queen of procrastination, today, i should have been doing college work, yah know, essays and research and shizz, buut nooo, instead i got up at 11, shuffled around the house, watched Juno, then spent about two hours "window shopping" online for clothes. It's terrible, it really is...
As part of my procrastinating, i got the camera, and took pictures of mothers jewelry, much to her displeasure. Thing is, whilst she complains on my baking 'ability' i complain about her jewelry making ability. Such is life, enough with the rambling, i show you pictures of pretty stuff she's made, and some cool beads i wanna steal....


This one is all mine, and i love it ^^, the beads were a random find and the chain was hanging around, so, mother put both together and its a favorite.





So, not mine, but it's pretty cool, 5 strands of memory wire all tied together, tis very lovely.



Now, i would just be happy to have a few bead bracelets made outta the smaller beads, but i really want the white one with the flowers on it :P



See, s'not all about me :P, ha, well, back to erm, work then...
Cheers xx

What a good day!

Despite it being dull, misty and stupidly cold, today has been a good day, not including my 'wait for 50 minutes for the teacher to show up to our English lesson' buut the less said about that the better...
Today is good for two reasons, one I finally got a job *wahoooo* at a little cafe in a little market in Clifton (yeah s'the posh bit, but its a job!) and two, I gots one of the most amaaazing cupcake books ever, like EVER!
S'called "A Zombie Ate My Cupcake!" and i was dorky enough to take pictures of the insides...







Pretty badass dontcha think, it's by Lily Vanilli and i'll be trying out a few of these over the next month, sadly it might just be once a week, cause I gots a Saturday job :) I's well proud.
Nighty night xx

Sunday Bakes

Today i bake again, mainly for a friends birthday, and to be fair, it's not got so much of a wow factor, but, chocolate chip cookies can't be argued with. So i give you images and recipe for these little circles of yummyness :)

You will need:
225g unsalted butter @ room temp
350g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 1/2 teaspoons of bircab of soda
225g dark chocolate, roughly copped
line 4 baking trays with baking paper

1) Preheat the oven to 170c/325f/gas mark 3

2) Cream the butter and sugar together, it's easiest to do this with an electric mixer.

3) Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well. The beat in the vanilla extract.

4) Add in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, bicarb) and stir in the chocolate so it's evenly dispersed.

5) Put six amounts of the dough onto each baking tray, the will spread out quiet a bit btw, i still haven't quite got the hand of it yet...

6) Bake for ten minutes, or until the edges start to go brown and then leave to cool on a wire rack.

That's all for today, until next week, when i shall attempt to make and transport a coffee cake for another friend, it could be easier to buy them something reeally, but wheres the fun in that...
Cheers xx

*flaps* Gaah...

Oh this was a nice surprise after doing English essays :)
I goes to my email filter through the regular crap and find an email from the lovely people at H&M and i'm kindly reminded that they've created an online shop!
Such joy and happy squeals from me, yes, i'm that sad, but it made me happy!

Check it out : http://shop.hm.com/gb/start

Sorry this is short, back at college, so it's all busy busy busy ^^
Laters xx