Winter Wonderland

It's been a few hectic weeks but I've finally had some time to get some Christmas themed baking done just over a week before Christmas Day - not bad considering I don't usually do anything in preparation for Christmas. I usually find myself barely noticing the festive season, absorbed in work normally, right up until Christmas Eve and then I'm usually so exhausted on the actual day I just feel ill and want to sleep all day. Oh Christmas Joy - perhaps I'll have some of that this year!?

Here's what I got up to this weekend gone - all recipes and ideas are mine so you'll have to message if you'd like any of them for your own use :)

Wonderland assortment: gingerbread, coconut ice, flakes, icing sugar, dessicated coconut and  white chocolate. 

Home made cake ball walnut-filled butter cream coated snowman.

Here's Melt the Snowman, Gingerbread Cherub, Christmas Trees, Star, Gingerbread House and Logs + snow - great edible Christmas decorations and treats for your home, inspired by Scandinavian Christmas decorations and treats.

Word for the day

I've decided to schedule in future "word for the day" which entails me picking a word of interest for whatever reason. Could be that I find it relevant to myself, to the current issues or just simply because I think that it will be worth sharing with you.

QUIDNUNC: a busy body, or nosy person

I chose this word because I think that although I consciously try not to pry into peoples' lives I think that actually my natural nature I am extremely inquisitive, which I suppose could be interpreted as being a rather nosy wotsit! Personally, my motivation for learning more about people is that I find people generally fascinating, rather than wanting to "know the gossip".

What should be on your audio player this Christmas

I apologise that I've been quite literally AWOL these past couple of months - this is due to a horrible influx of  work that took over my spare time for personal blogging. Here I share with you what I recommend that should be part of everyone's Christmas playlist: Sufjan Stevens' Silver and Gold.

His videos are amazing and bizarre - please watch and witness the wonderful and weirdness of Stevens' creations.

Autumness

Two years ago I was invited to a friend's pumpkin carving party. I really enjoyed it because I am creative and enjoy creative hobbies and things that look nice. Not to mention one of my geek loves is to embrace ALL the seasons (though I usually detest the winter) and doing something like pumpkin carving is perfect if you like that sort of thing. She also inspired me to put pumpkin in food - another alien concept to me at the time. Anyway, I got my creative pants on - see >>>

My UNICORN pumpkin!

My own creation: soft cream cheese, cheddar cheese and pumpkin pie (holla).

MMM!

My own creation of pumpkin tart with flat meringue (tastes like a spicy pumpkin egg custard tart)

Like the keen bean that I am, I made a hot rum and cinnamon coffee with cream to accompany this already sickly dessert.

Note: all photo and writing credit mine - remember your copyright law!:)

Glitter Glitter Glitter

Euro pop girl's debut caught my eye today and after watching the video to Stardust I thought that I would share it with you all as she sings quite nice songs, great style and in her video she wears a lot of GLITTER! Yey!

Since becoming a fully-fledged magazine food blogger; my reputation as being a food lover has fast grown. It was my youngest nephew's second birthday this month and here is the outcome of my first EVER attempt at a birthday cake. We had to travel three hours by car to get to my sister's house and unfortunately the front of the cake got quite bashed and fell apart but here (above) is the final picture before it got demolished by hungry little monsters and big ones too...

Overall these kind of cakes take time - time for the cakes to bake (in my case wait for the first cake to be baked as I only have ONE cake tin!?!? And then bake the second after that) and then cool; then freeze; then make the buttercream (i'm a firsthander at making this) and decorate; but the most challenging part was making the front train look like a train! Mine started off looking more like a boat ;) With some emergency chopping I managed to get it looking more like one but still not perfect. I decorated the cake and then my mum and dad and I set off to Cambridge where along the way the front got totally ruined; again with some quick-thinking and reapplying of smarties and smoothing over of the buttercream the cake was (kind of) restored. Except it looked less train like and red buttercream was smudged over the smoke and wheels and smartie train decoration.

No matter: the cake tasted good and the kids loved that there was so much of it that they could munch their way through (bit like the hungry caterpillar they were!).

Meaning good results; despite the mishaps - woop woop!

Next time I'll be much more prepared and hopefully better all round.

For the chocolate cake I used: 

5 spoons Cadbury cocoa drinking powder

3 eggs

4 oz flour

4 oz caster sugar

4 oz butter

Until next the cake baking adventure!

One of my favourite poems

Here is one of my favourite poems: a piece that has inspired me to write gritty and stark prose ever since I was a teen bopper of 13 years of age.