Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

Chocolate Orange Marble Cupcakes

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

So I have to confess that I have spent the weekend basically just drooling over the new Smeg UK Stand Mixer. It's just so bloody pretty, but there is only so many times you can look at such a thing without getting the urge to bake so I took myself off to my mediocre crappy kitchen utensils and let loose in the kitchen. I actually baked twice this past weekend so I'll share the other recipe soon- in other words look forward to finding out how to make my favourite M&Mmmm Pie.

But first, cupcakes:

Clearly the pink icing doesn't make much sense but I ran out of Orange food colouring *oops*
It's a little Halloweeny don't you think?
 I looked every where for a decent chocolate orange cupcake recipe but none of the ones I found really wowed me so I decided just to make it up as I went along and this was the result. You can use this recipe to make pretty much any flavour of cupcake you just have to know when and where to make substitutions :-). I'm thinking strawberry and white chocolate next!!

Okay enough chat, here we go:

Ingredients:
For Cake:
125g Plain Flour
1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
100g Unsalted Butter (or dairy free alternative)
100g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
19ml Orange Extract
25g Cocoa
75g Milk Cooking Chocolate
10g Orange Gel Food Colouring

For Decoration:
440g Icing Sugar
110g Unsalted Butter (or dairy free alternative)
1 Pinch of Salt
19ml Orange Extract
2 1/2 Tbs Golden Syrup
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
75g Milk Cooking Chocolate
10g Orange (or in this case Red) Gel Food Colouring
Terry's Chocolate Orange mini segments
Sainsbury's Glimmer Sugar in Gold to sparkle!!

Method:
For Cake:
Preheat oven to 170 degrees

In a medium bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt together then set aside while you work on the wet ingredients.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar together until smooth-I used a boring old hand held mixer and a wooden spoon :-( whilst dreaming of that stand mixer.
Once smooth beat in the 2 eggs and the orange extract (most bottles come in 38ml so just use half the bottle).

Bring back the dry stuff and mix it into the wet mixture a large spoonful at a time. Use a mixer for this if you can as the mixture can become a little stiff.

Once all the ingredients are combined it's time to separate them into two bowls- put half in one bowl and keep half in the one you are using.

To one bowl add 25g of cocoa and 75g of melted chocolate (1 minute in the microwave should do it) and stir until the chocolately goodness is undeniable!
To the other, add 10g of Orange food gel and stir-that was someone easier :-p

Place cupcake cases in a cupcake tray (we like a nice deep one) and spoon in the mixture one colour at a time. We put chocolate in the bottom then added orange on top.
Once the two colours are in each case use a skewer to slightly mix the colours together to create the marble effect.



Pop in the oven for 15-17 minutes or until lightly browned.




Now you just have to leave them to cool for around 10-15 minutes before they are ready to decorate.

For Decoration:

In one large bowl (we washed and dried as we went along here because seriously you need so many bowls for this recipe *haha*) add the icing sugar,salt and the softened butter together and mix on the lowest speed other wise you'll look like you've got a really bad coke habit.
Once they are both fully mixed together you can add the orange and vanilla extracts to the mixture along with the syrup. 

And now it's time to separate them again: you know the drill half in one bowl half in the other.

To one bowl add 75g of melted chocolate and stir well.
To the other add 10g of your chosen gel food colouring.

It's really up to you how you decorate from here: we used a small star nozzle to pipe on the pink, which we did around the edges of the cake and into the middle. Once every cake had been pinked we popped them in the fridge to set for a minute or two.

Use the cooling time to wash out your piping bag ready to be filled with the chocolate icing.

For the chocolate we changed the nozzle to a slightly bigger star so we could have a noticeable peak and filled in the top part of each cupcake.

And that's it really- all that's left to do it pop a Terry's Chocolate Orange segment on top and sprinkle with your glimmer sugar et voila...

Pop them back in the fridge for 5 minutes and then enjoy!

These are so yummy and I can't wait to try different flavours. What flavours would you try, and would it be weird if I just started dusting all my food with edible glimmer sugar?

Happy Baking :-)

 photo post signature may 2016_zpsz67i4dbe.png

Hillary's Crafternoon // My First Blogger Event // Joe Bloggers Network

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Hi guys!
What do you get when you take a beautiful tearoom in Glasgow, a soupcon of lovely bloggers, gorgeously decadent cake, and the new fabric range from Hillary's Blinds? Hillary's Crafternoon is what you get dear readers. Other answers floating around in my head are, a rollicking good time, and pinpricked fingers!

If you haven't guessed by now, I was one of the lucky bloggers that were invited to take part in a crafting event with The Crafty Hen, Joe's Bloggers and Hillary's.

We all gathered into the lovely Butterfly & Pig and were told what we were going to be doing with our afternoon- now I'm not going to lie, I cheated a little and checked up on the previous crafternoons to see what we were in for- which included making our very own notebook cover. If you know me at all you will know I am absolutely obsessed with notebooks (73 and rising in my current collection) so I was super excited about making something so "me".

I am seriously coveting this cabinet! also sorry about catching the Crafty Hen mid-word...

Pretty pretty wall decor, and the colours are seriously my dream colours.


We were given our choice of fabrics from Hillary's new range and I just had to have this gorgeous bluey/silvery/greeny shiny material. The pattern is so simple but beautiful at the same time.
It has to be said that this little project was nowhere near as easy as it sounds, but with a little help from the lovely Michelle of DIY Shopaholic I got there in the end.

Hillary's Blinds, Crafternoon, Notebook

I was quite proud of how it turned out if I'm honest, and the best part is that once the notebook inside is finished I can just slip in another one :-).

It was lovely getting to know the other bloggers, that I was sat with, while we worked on our notebooks (and while I personally worked on not pricking myself with the needle every two seconds)! And we were given a chance to have a natter when the lovely servers brought us our beautiful cakes.










Now I am definitely not a big cake eater but I did have a taste of the lovely Red Velvet cake (picture at the top) and it was very yummy. If you like cake you absolutely should pop along to try these out. The fit for a Princess pink concoction above was Michelle's cake, but I couldn't resist taking a picture.

After cake we were given our second project of the day which was way, way harder than our wee notebook cover!! We got to make a stuffed bird, now some of you may know that I hate birds-this task didn't do anything to change my mind! I used the same fabric because come on it's damn pretty, and I like things to match. Now my complete inability to sew anything other than a rogue button became really apparent here, but I got there in the end and created this little beauty...










I'd like to say that the feathery effect on my bird's tail was intentional but honestly it just happened as the fabric started to fray, but hey it looks good, right??

All in all I had a fabulous time at my first blogger's event, and I can't thank the companies involved more for the invite!
Special mention to Bex at Evil Ginger who made me feel comfortable as soon as I arrived. I am not the best in new social situations but the ladies sat with me on the day made it a relatively painless experience.

I can't wait until the next event, and hopefully next time I won't leave with countless pinpricks in my fingers and jeans!!

Much Love
AJ xx

March Madness

Friday, March 28, 2014

Wow I hadn't even realised it had been quite so long since I posted! I am very sorry, I can only blame a combination of Uni stress and being very very ill :-(. But there is an upside to being sick and living in front of a computer...shopping!!

So I thought to tide you over until I can concentrate long enough to give you a real post I would share my Best Bargain Buys-the March Edition, with you :-).


Gorgeous from H&M (£29.99) although I used my 25% that I got free in Glamour!
Had gone into town to get the Michael Kors version of this but it turns out that Aberdeen's FOUR floor John Lewis isn't classed as a big store, and thus they don't stock MK in store :-(...but hey BARGAIN!

Yeah because I need ANOTHER bag! I love the shape on this and because Internacionale have gone into administration this beauty was free! That's right it's buy one get one free on ALL bags and none cost more than £20.

Love the colour of this (in real life it's a soft duck egg blue) and it has the studded bottom that I love about Alexander Wang bags but at only £20 plus the added bonus of the one above this is much more purse-friendly.

Daisies!! I have a bit of a crush on daisies at the moment so when I saw this beauty in Primark (kids section again i'm afraid) I had to snap it up...only £8!

Denim and denim effect is going to be huge this summer I'm assured. So I of course promptly went out and snapped up my favourite style (skater of course) in a totally retro shade of denim. 

Pretty, pink, and baggy enough to cover that 4th year bulge that is slowly developing :-(. I love this and because it's from H&M Kids it only set me back £7.99. If you're after one though I suggest buying the smallest size you think you'll need...I bought the age 10-11 and it's MASSIVE!

I have been tempted to dye my hair pink for a long time and then I keep remembering that im almost 27 and about to enter the world of real work so keep deciding against it. With these however I can be whatever colour I want for as short a period of time as I want...colour your hair in then wash it out, simples!! I got 24 colours here for £3.99 from Amazon.

You might remember I bought John Green's The Fault in Our Stars last month, well I LOVED it!! So as I usually do I went right on a bought all of his novels so far!! (not including ones hes written with other people).
These are: Looking For Alaska- £3.07 (incuding postage) from Amazon
An Abundance of Katherines- £7.99 from Waterstones
Paper Towns- £3.98 from Waterstones (buy one get one half price)

Everyone knows I love to draw and paint and make things so I decided to make something cute for my sisters birthday. For that I needed a canvas...I headed to Hobbycraft (my third favourite shop in the world) and picked up a pack of three for just £4 in their sale :-).

SECRET CRAFT PROJECT HINT!
SECRET CRAFT PROJECT HINT NUMBER 2


My best girl Alexandra saw a print with this saying on it and instantly knew I would love it, unfortunately I couldn't get the print without travelling to Brechin :-(, fortunately though Amazon had this cute little plaque that will fit perfectly on my wall of art!

Sometimes you just want to play a computer game that requires little brain power and a steady trigger finger...Ratchet and Clank is the perfect game...this is the next game in the series which I picked up today.

This was the game that came before that which I bought on Tuesday, and finished on Wednesday!! Oops!

Anyway that's what I've been amusing myself with during this horrible month. I promise much more frequent postings as soon as I can.

Much Love
AJ
xx




Try it yourself Tuesday 2

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

As promised on Twitter, today I'm going to show you how I made my new jewellery holder :-).
I clearly have a Bottled Treasures addiction that much is obvious, but it also turns out I generally love necklaces in all forms. So it was with a growing collection in mind that I decided to build my own holder. Let's have a look...

What you need:
Foam display board (size is your preference) 
Wallpaper featuring pattern of your choice.
Wood beading- any type of wood. 
Paste
Hacksaw
20 small screws + screwdriver
Paint or woodstain + paintbrush 


What to do:
Okay so I forgot to take photos of each thing needed before I started but this gives you an idea. First I got a foam display board (the kind you use for moodboards and presentations) and cut it to the size I wanted. Because these are foamcore they cut really simply with a Stanley knife (just watch your fingers). 
Now for my wallpaper I'll admit I was a bit sneaky- I didn't see the point in buying a whole roll for a small board- so I went and got a sample from B&Q. Their samples are there for the taking just don't take too much, I took about 3ft but felt bloody cheeky doing it! 
I cut my board to fit the width of the paper which is a few inches narrower than the standard A2 board :-). 

Next up I used wallpaper paste to attach the two, first paste the board- don't be scared here be quite liberal with your paste and don't worry about lumps. Then I pasted the paper itself and folded it to absorb the paste for a few minutes. 
Once I'd let the paste lie for a bit I took this little guy out 
This is a squeegee that I got when I bought furniture stickers from not on the high street. Any flat surfaced spreader will do but I had this so figured I best use it. I placed the paper onto the board, spread it down with my hands and then used the squeegee to flatten out any air bubbles. This took about ten minutes because I am a perfectionist. But the result looks pretty good...
I left this to dry overnight-although this is probably not necessary. While it was drying I moved on to building my frame. 

I picked a thin beading (2cm) with a graduated pattern. This bit is pretty simple-just measure out the lengths for each edge of your board, draw a pencil line on the beading where you need to cut, and then very carefully using a hacksaw, cut to size.
I needed 96inches total of wood-thankfully B&Q's beading comes in just above that :-). So now I have four pieces of wood that could be stained, painted, or left as is. Because my dear father accidentally snapped one of my pieces, I had to piece it back together with No More Nails, which left it covered in glue-like residue, I decided to paint mine. 
I used an off-white shade called bracken which is softer than pure white, and doesn't overshadow the paper. 
I painted these and left them to dry overnight. 

The next day I was good to go. I had originally planned to attach the frame using No More Nails but seeing how annoying it was the day before I went with screws instead. 

If you're using nails find a hard flat surface to work on. I drew on the back of the board where the wood pieces would go so I had a guide when working with screws. I then simply placed a piece at a time on the right side, flipped the board and placed my screws. (That's the good thing about using foamcore, the screws sit in place without effort.) Now it's just a case of screwing away, I placed 5 screws  along the vertical frames, and 4 along each horizontal frame. After about half an hour, and a tired wrist my board was all but finished :-). 

All that was left was adding a hook and hanging her. I used a simple silver hook, which I placed in the centre of the top frame piece, screwed in and the hung over a pin on my wall. 

Sadly I noticed once she was on the wall that because the softness of the board (needed if you want to use pins for hanging your jewellery) the board didn't lie flush against the wall, it appeared more curved. To get around this I simply placed two screws in the bottom corners, and screwed these straight into the wall. 

And that's it!! I then stuck pins where I wanted them and started hanging my collection. 
I use pins because it means I can move them around quite easily if I want to add more necklaces. However if you want a set layout you can use a harder board and some small hooks. 

Hope you liked this how too, and if I can help with your own projects just give me a shout. I'm always happy to help fellow DIY-ers. 

Much Love
AJ
xx

My life as I know it!

Friday, February 14, 2014

So much going on at the minute it's a wonder I am able to organise it in my brain let alone physically!
Between Uni, wedding planning, and self-titled "keep me sane" DIY projects it's a wonder there is any room left in the bed for poor Damian! 
I know that sounds like a weird statement but the pictures below should clarify a little bit :-). 


Here you see a small mixture and even that looks huge! All the wonderful things here are either dissertation related or fun project related! The big white board and bit of wood will soon become a photo frame jewellery display. With added wallpaper for prettiness of course :-). 
Then we have a couple of scrapbooks, wedding organisers binder, and of course the dreaded books on "gender and media studies" YAWN!! 


Then we have these beauties!! It's like the world of theorists got together and decided to ensure every book on celebrity culture had to be thick as all hell! 

Now I love a good magazine (I might even be addicted) but when this selection is a TENTH of what you have to tear apart and analyse for your dissertation then it's so not as fun :-(. 

And on top of all that we have...
Notes to be written up and highlighted!! 

Such a fun Valentines Day :-). 

Hope you've enjoyed laughing at my sadness, and feel free to share with me any things you've got keeping you busy, in the comments. 

Much love
AJ
xx 

What I made this week!

Monday, February 10, 2014

I thought it would be fun to show you some of the stuff I've made this week. 
Sometimes I get in a really creative mood and all this stuff starts coming out of my brain....

Like this blog book...

This is the easiest thing I've made but I think it looks really cool. I just took a simple sketchbook (this one £3 in HobbyCraft sale) and wrapped it with two of my favourite Washi Tapes. It looked pretty cool like that and I was tempted to leave it but I'm in a branding mood (as I hope you've notice with the makeover) so I drew a copy of the blog header and stuck it in the middle- and that's it! One book, ten minutes and some tape and I have a gorgeous book with which to organise blog posts, note down ideas, and even sketch some inspirational drawings. 

And then we have this...
It's a cake I assure you :-). In fact it is a Vanilla sponge with vanilla cream icing, and it is yummy! Some of you may know that me and Damian decided,a while back, to make our own wedding cake and that means we HAVE to make a LOT of practice cakes :-). A couple of weeks ago we made a gorgeous red velvet with white chocolate buttercream icing and that turned out really well. This time however we were a bit disappointed as the recipe we used didn't make enough batter for our 9inch tin, this means it came out too thin to slice and ice :-(...BUT hey that's what practice cakes are all about! 

Lastly for this week so far I made me and Damian matching lovey dovey mugs! I know I'm practically gagging at the thought too, but I'd be planning to monogram mugs for the wedding so let's call this practice too. 
Thinking about it these were probably easier to make than the blog book but hey ho. I took two plain white porcelain mugs and drew on them with porcelain pens (which I also got from HobbyCraft).
I would recommend using trace down paper to get straight edges if you wanna make these...I went free hand because I figured drawing a heart would be simple, but these edges are curved and annoying. Anyway that's it, draw on, let dry, and then fire them in the oven for 30 minutes at 160degrees. 


I love all of these things and have a lot of other projects coming up, but figured I better do SOME Uni work. 

Feel free to comment any suggestions for cake recipes etc that you have, or share some of your own projects, I'd love to see them. 

Much love
AJ
xx