Figuring Out Where I am...

A month or so ago I was pretty happy with how my blog was going, and how my Youtube channel was going, and then something big changed in my life and since then my 'online' life seems to have ground to a halt. Basically long story short... I got a job. I had been out of work every since I left Benefit back in June(ish), and I had a lot of time on my hands to focus on my blog and my Youtube, which was honestly really great.

Then on the flip side whilst I had an abundance of time, I had no money of my own, and was relying heavily on my boyfriend for the necessities. So I knew it was time to get back into it. I happened across an advert for a job at GAME head Office in Basingstoke, for a three month contract over the Christmas period. Which I thought was perfect, because it would give me some money over one of the busiest times of the year, and it would also give me time to figure out my next move without the commitment of knowing that I have to work there for the foreseeable future.

So I started working there a month or so ago, and honestly, I am really enjoying it. It's such a great company to work for, and it's great to be surrounded by video games and gamers all day long. Since starting my job I have played video games 80% more than I used to. I've finished a couple of video games, and I am even getting back into the habit of pre-ordering the games that I am excited to play! Whilst I am enjoying my time, I am well aware that everything else is suffering because of it...

I want to get back on track with my blog, and making Youtube videos so much, but every time I sit down to plan something, or write, nothing seems to come out. So I want to set myself some goals for the next month and see if I can improve anything!

1. Make ONE Youtube Video a week: this will be the same schedule that I was following before, and will get me back into the swing of things without pressuring me to do too much too soon.
2. Write TWO blogposts a week: I was getting into the habit or writing a blogpost a day, which was good, but it's just not a realistic with my new schedule, so I think two a week should be manageable.

So we'll have to see what happens over the next few weeks... Hopefully I'll find a way to fit my blog into my life again.

Bloggers Bake Along to GBBO: FINAL WEEK: Classically British Cake

As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to make TWO bakes for the final week, instead of my usual one. This of course meant I set myself far too much work, raised the bar far too high, and ended up getting myself stressed. However something decent actually came out of it!

As soon as I hear the term Classic British Cake, I immediately think Victoria Sponge cake. It's so quintessentially British to me, that I just knew I had to make one. I also didn't just want to make your bog standard sponge cake, so I thought to myself... 'What is the most British thing I can think of in relation to cake?'. The answer of course, was tea... Tea and cakes, afternoon tea, what could be more British. So I set myself the (what I thought was easy) task of making a Teapot Cake! So here's how it all came into being...

It all started with a sponge. I mixed all the ingredients together in my mixer, and then used some Hemisphere tins that I got from Lakeland to make to half sphere cakes. This was probably the easiest part of the whole process truth be told...

Then I moved onto making a jam... this was the first time I had ever attempted a jam, and considering I didn't have a fancy sugar thermometer I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think I'm going to be making this often because it tastes so much better than supermarket cheap jam, and it only took me about 30 minutes to make!

Then I made a simple butter-cream icing which simply involves creaming butter and then slowly bit by bit adding icing sugar. This is probably the simplest of all icings to make, so still didn't run into any issues here!

Then came the putting together of the cake... WOW was this a flipping nightmare. So I crumb coated the sphere halves with the butter-cream icing so that my fondant would stick. and then I made one of the spheres flat on the bottom so it would stand. Then I topped that with butter-cream and jam, before putting the final sphere on top. Next I rolled out my fondant, which I happened to colour myself, which just took such a freaking long time that I wanted to cry. Then the WORST step of all... putting the fondant onto the cake. This was my first time covering a cake with fondant, so picking to do it on a sphere cake was probably a bad move on my part. It just didn't go smoothly... literally. Once I was relatively happy I moved on to the other decoration. So I made a little lid by rolling out white fondant and using a cookie cutter. Then I rolled a small ball for the little lid handle. For some unknown reason I decided to make a polkadot tea pot, so I also spent half an hour piping little dots onto my teapot, before using toothpicks to add a handle, and spout. Finally adding gold accents with a brush and gold edible paint.

There we have it, my classically British victoria sponge cake! I am so happy that it turned out OK, considering the blood, sweat and tears (figuratively) that went into this.

What have you baked this week?

2 Years Together...

I can't believe that Tim and I have been together for two whole years now. This is the longest relationship that I have ever had, and not only that, it is by far the best that I have ever had...

If you had told me a few years ago that I would meet a guy that was so perfectly suited to me as Tim is, I would have laughed in your face, and yet here we are!

This anniversary Tim and I went out for dinner, and then to the cinema to see The Intern. Not only that but this weekend he is whisking me away to a secret place for a weekend away, just the two of us. I will admit that the only reason that he's keeping the location a secret is because I guessed the first two locations he had chosen... Sometimes I can be the worst! Thankfully he managed to see the funny side, but is definitely keeping the final location close to his chest!

On top of being taken away Tim decided to get me some gifts also! The first gift I received a little early, and was The Elder Scrolls Online for Xbox One. Of course I wasted no time in creating my character Arieta, and so far I am enjoying it greatly. Then on our actual anniversary he came home with a bunch of roses, and a lovely card with something beautiful written inside. Then yesterday evening he surprised me again with a beautiful Pandora charm for my bracelet that he bought me one year on my birthday! I am such a lucky lady!

To celebrate two years together I thought I would find a few questions I could answer about the past year.

What has brought you closer together this year?

I think the one thing that has brought us closer together the most this year would have to be moving in with Tim's parents. It's not the easiest thing to do, moving in with someone's parents that you've never lived with before. There's been times when it's put a strain on us, but it's definitely made us stronger as a couple. We talk about our issues now a lot more than we used to, which is great.

What is your favourite memory of this year?

My favourite memory would have to be seeing Tim hold his nieces and nephews. He is so cute with them because he's always worried that he's going to drop them or something silly like that, but in reality he's actually pretty good with them. Even better is how he looks at me when I am holding them and making them laugh or smile, he just always looks at me with this look... I can't describe it, but it makes me feel so loved and special.

If you could do anything differently what would that be?

I think if I could redo this year, then I would definitely decide not to move in with Tim's parents. Whilst it's turned out fine, as a couple we definitely need our own space. We are currently looking into places to rent, and are hoping to move out soon. I know that as soon as we have more room to breathe are relationship will grow even better!

What are your hopes for the next year?

First off and most importantly I want us to have our own space. As mentioned above we are already working on this. Then I think I just want us to keep learning about each other, and growing together. I'm not going to lie I am approaching the age where I have always wanted to have a baby, but we'll just see what the next year holds for us. Maybe this time next year we'll be there, maybe we'll need a little longer. I honestly couldn't care less as long as I have my Tim by my side.

Apologies for the soppy-ness in this post guys, sometimes I just can't help myself!

Bloggers Bake Along to GBBO: FINAL WEEK: St. Clements Iced Buns

The Bake Off is all over, and I am super upset to see it go. There's something about sitting down to watch it each week, and getting excited about baking, that I love. I can honestly say this year has been my favourite bake off, as I have not only been watching, but as you my lovely readers know I have also been baking every week! I remember right bake to my first bake, and I was so worried as to whether I would be able to keep up, and my confidence has just soared since then, and I really feel like I kind of know what I am doing now. So much so that I hope to keep up my one bake a week on my blog, and I hope you will all enjoy reading them.

So onto the final bakes. Originally I decided I was going to make all three of the final challenges, but after I decided what I was going to make for two of them, I just knew I would be setting myself too much work. One bake I knew I couldn't go without making was the iced buns. These have been a favourite of mine ever since I was a kid, I'm used to a plain bun topped with gorgeous water icing, but with my recipe I have gone all out! I decided to go with two of my favourite flavours, orange, and lemon. Hence the name of the bake (I tried so hard to be clever with).

For the bun and icing parts I decided to go with Paul Hollywood's recipe which can be found on the BBC website here.

This involved putting all the ingredients into a bowl and mixing them by hand. We all know how much Mr. Hollywood likes to get his hands dirty. This ended up with my hands being glued to the dough, but with a little extra flour, and a lot of kneading it turned out pretty well! This then had to prove for one hour until doubled in size. Then I had the rather difficult task of shaping my buns... Honestly I blame the cheap Ikea table I was trying to shape them on! Once they are shaped you place them onto a greased baking tray and leave to prove for 40 minutes more. By which time (if you are doing a batch bake) they should be touching. After that all that's left is for them to go in the oven. I was shocked to find they only needed a mere 10 minutes in the oven, until they came out looking brown and lovely, or so I thought! I let these beauties cool, got all nice and ready to decorate them and they were RAW underneath! Never again shall I take the word of Paul Hollywood. So in they went again for another 10 minutes upside down. Low and behold when they came out there were still doughy... Needless to say I was fuming... I don't know exactly how long there were in for in the end, but I kept having to put them back in every time I thought they were done!

Whilst my buns were proving I started making my fillings, starting with one of my all time favourites, Lemon curd. To make this I followed this recipe also from the BBC website. This involves melting butter and sugar into lemon juice and zest over a pan of simmering water. Once this was all melted I then added whisked eggs to the mix, stirring quickly until combined. Then you cook this slowly stirring occasionally until it coats the back of a spoon. Once at this stage simply remove from the heat to leave to cool, and thicken.

Once my curd was out of the way I moved onto a marmalade. When researching a recipe for this I was disheartened to see a tonne of recipes that involved leaving things overnight, as I am impatient and wanted it to be done fast. So I found this recipe for fast marmalade that only takes 20 minutes to cook, and I can confirm it turned out really well. The recipe called for a blender, but as I don't have one I simply zested my oranges, chopped down the flesh as small as possible, and then chopped the skin into strips. All that's left to do is add the sugar and boil the mix. Once boiled for 20 minutes, leave the mix to cool and it begins to thicken!

When the buns were FINALLY done, I moved on to filling and decorating them. I whipped up some cream to go in the middle, and then made up some water icing in Orange and Yellow colours. Then I simply cut the buns in half, spread the filling on, piped on the cream, and carefully (a.k.a messily) placed the water icing on the top. Which as you can see from the photos didn't go so well... I had originally intended to pipe this on, but I only had one piping bag left...

So here's the finished article! I'll admit they aren't the prettiest iced buns I've ever seen, but I have honestly never eaten any tastier ones! The lemon curd is so tart, and just works perfectly in the bun, and the marmalade is just sweet enough to add something new to the classic iced bun. I will definitely be making these again soon, but next time I'll be ignoring Paul Hollywood's directions!

Have you managed to bake anything this week?

Bloggers Bake Along to GBBO: Salted Caramel Chocolate Tart

I know... I know... another salted caramel recipe... I just can't help myself because it tastes so good! Plus it was honestly the first thing that popped into my head once I decided to make a chocolate tart.

As I sat watching the Bake Off on Wednesday, listening to the bakers say how difficult it is to work with chocolate pastry, I almost laughed. 'How difficult can it really be?' I thought to myself. The answer to that question is of course very difficult. I can honestly say I will never underestimate chocolate pastry again. It was just difficult to combine, difficult to roll, and then difficult to tell when baked...

One I had my pastry case in the oven I set about making my salted caramel sauce, which involved boiling brown sugar, cream, and butter together until it looked vaguely like caramel. Then once my case was baked I poured a little of the caramel sauce right into the base of the case and left it to set slightly. Then I got to work on the chocolate filling, the process of which is very similar to the making of chocolate ganache. I boiled cream, sugar and vanilla essence over the hob and then poured them over chocolate and butter, whisking until smooth. I then simply spooned the mixture over the top of my caramel and smoothed it over. This then went into the fridge to set for two hours.

For some reason I decided that my decoration hasn't really been up to scratch and us such I decided to attempt to pipe an intricate design onto my tart. I did this using left over white chocolate I had from last week's bake, which I then piped into a swirling pattern.

Overall I am very happy with my tart, and even happy with my piping! Considering is was my first attempt at free-hand piping a design from my head (rather than a picture), I'm very pleased! Trust me when I say it tastes as good as it looks, already can't wait to have another slice...

What have you baked this week?

Sum Up Sunday #26

It has been over a month since I last did a Sum Up Sunday post, which I find completely crazy, but I guess I have just been super busy, and here is what I have been up to:

1. New baking posts every week following the Great British Bake Off
2. Visiting Family in Wakefield
3. Assisting in the Hair and Makeup Department at Goodwood Revival, a vintage 40's/50's/60's/70's festival.
4. Attempting to do some Halloween themed makeup tutorials for my Youtube channel
5. Starting a New Job at a video game retailer

Wow writing it down in a list really makes me realise just how much I have been doing, and it's tiring me out just thinking about all the amazing stuff I have done... but instead of going on and on about each individual thing, why I don't I just share all the photos with you?

Food is always a massive part of my instagram, if you follow me there then you will already know this. The first picture above is some mini-pancakes I had in Westfields when I went after SITC 2015. The rest of the pictures (apart from the last one) are of my bakes that I have been doing for the Bloggers Bake Along to GBBO, and as it stands I haven't missed baking a single week! The final picture was a treat I actually had last weekend when Tim and I found out that Koppaberg (my favourite cider company) does an alcohol-free cider, so even though I've given up alcohol, I don't have to give up cider! You have no idea how happy this makes me...

For some reason the past month or so both my makeup, and my selfie game have gone up, not that I am complaining because IMO I look damn good! When I was at Goodwood myself and they other assistants were allowed to get our hair and makeup done by the team because we were on site for a lot of the day, so this meant I got to live a vintage look for three days in a row! The first two days I was stuck in the 50's and then on the last day I asked for a 60's look, which ended up being my personal favourite, and I was so surprised to find that I can rock a beehive!

Other than that the biggest change in my life these past months is that I have a new part time job. I work for a video game retailer, as a customer service advisor in their call centre. I don't want to name them because I know sometimes companies aren't always comfortable with their employee's talking about them on social media outside of work, (even though I have been told it's perfectly fine by my company), so I won't be doing it. All I will say is that so far it is probably the best place I have ever worked at. The atmosphere is amazing, everyone is like minded and everyone plays video games. On game release days they have contests and raffles where you have chances to win consoles etc. which I think is amazing. There are consoles set up in all of the staff areas for you to play on your breaks... Oh AND there is an onsite shop where you can go and buy games etc. and get an automatic staff discount, and it is an exact copy of their actual retail outlets, and it's literally just in the middle of the office. It's so cool... I've currently only been there for two weeks, but it's probably the best two working weeks I have ever had... I am currently on a temporary contract to cover the peak period of the year, but I am hoping and praying that come January they will want to keep me on!

Currently I'm:

Reading: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (still...)

Listening To: Fall Out Boy!

Playing: Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer

Feeling: Tired after a long working week, but very content

Looking Forward To: Seeing Fall Out Boy next week!!!

Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer

Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer was finally released yesterday so my long wait to get my hands on it was over! I've literally been waiting for this game to hit the shelves ever since it's announcement trailer was revealed. I have been a big fan of the AC franchise since playing Wild World on my original DS. The best thing about AC:HHD is that it is completely different to the other games.

In the other AC games you play as a new villager in a town, and you help to make the town greater. You can design your own living space and go fishing etc. making friends with the villagers. However in the newest instalment of the game you take a job at Nook's homes in a new town, and your aim is to design the houses of the villagers based on their design visions!

One of the coolest things about this game is the addition of the collectible amibo cards, that you can use to call characters to bring them into the game, either to invite them to another animals house, or to design their room for them! With the new NFC reader you also don't have to worry about whether you have the Older or Newer version 3DS, it's now accessible to all. On top of all that you can use the NFC reader with other amiibo compatible games, and amiibo characters if you have the older version console...

I have an older version 3DS so I purchased the copy of the game which came with the NFC reader, also for a short time all copies of the game will come with one special amiibo card, which are shiny. Special characters can only be unlocked in the game using amiibo cards, however standard characters can be unlocked normally.

With my preorder of the game I also got a poster and stickers so that I can track which characters I have collected so far. I've already decided that I simply must get my hands on all of the amiibo cards, but I started myself off by buying 3 packs. Each pack comes with 1 Special and 2 Standard character cards. So I now have my hands on 4 special cards and 6 standard cards.

Special Amiibo Cards I have

Standard Amiibo Cards I have

I'm already having to fight the urge to go into town and buy myself more amiibo cards... seriously the struggle is real. Anyhow seeing as I have been having so much fun with this game I thought I would share some of my designs with you so that you can get an idea of what the game is like.

Goldie wanted to be surrounded by books.

Lopez wanted a modern chic style.

Roscoe's theme was black and white.

 Pecans theme was a classic look.

My design for the town's new school

They've made it super easy for you to design the perfect home for each animal with the use of the second touch screen to drag and drop furniture, rotate it, and even duplicate it, all onto a mini floor plan of the room. You are also able to spin the camera view around so you can make sure you are happy with your design from every angle! Also with some of the characters as well as designing their interior, you get to pick a plot of land for them, and design their house also.

Carrie wanted a garden for her children to play in.

A child friendly room for Carrie

A Barber shop look for Gruff.

This game is already so addictive and has a lot of potential to take up a lot of my gaming time! On my poster it also states the Amiibo cards are 'season 1' so I am guessing that in a years time they may bring out another set of cards for the game so you can continue to have fun with it.

If you are a fan of the Animal Crossing games then this one is definitely for you, but be ready to expect the game to be 100% different to the other ones. This game is all about designing homes, so if that's not something you enjoyed in the games previously then I can honestly say that this won't be for you. I'd best be off, I've got to go see a dog about a house!