First Birthday Parties.

It was a family friend's first birthday party this past weekend and I spent the morning eating tiny cupcakes decorated as cats and filming these cuties...

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FreedomCafe.

This morning I went to a birthday brunch at Freedom Cafe. We snacked on crumpets and sipped on lemonade under the trees and bunting and, as per usual, memories of the morning were captured by many a photograph.  And so without further ado...

Rainbow cupcakes.

Today Jade came over and we made rainbow cupcakes.  We used a normal cupcake recipe and before baking we divided the batter into four bowls and added food colouring to each one.  We then layered the four types of batter into cupcake cases, baked them and finished them off with butter icing.

Jade taught me how to ice with piping bags.

The inside of the cupcakes.

Then we drank tea and ate them!

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Indeed.

Study ingredients.

I feel as though I've spent the last month holed up in my room studying, however it's only been a week and so far I've only written three exams- only nine more to go I guess:( Anyway, I'm not a very fussy person when it comes to studying- my only rules are that there has to be snacks and music.  I know that some people can find both of these things distracting when learning but I find they help me to not be distracted by other thing. Ahem, internet.  So while I take a study break I thought I'd share one of the playlists, found on 8tracks, that I've been listening to for past hour while trying absorb information on how to measure the area of blahblahblah.  Let's just say if you ever build a pyramid in your garden and need to know it's volume, you can call me.  

Nights That We Knew from zephu on 8tracks Radio.

Now it's time for me to go back to the land of quadrilaterals and endless cups of tea.  Meh, that sounds lame but to be perfectly honest I don't really have the motivation to do anything about it.

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Heels and Hives.

Last weekend was a friend's sixteenth birthday party.  It was a super cute tea party with the sweetest decorations, delicious cake pops, macrons and red velvet cupcakes.  We ate ourselves to a standstill, played with the helium balloons and took a lot of pictures.  All in all it was a very entertaining and fun afternoon.

Sohini. As usual.

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Moustaches and tea.

Last weekend I had a bunch of people over for what was supposed to be a tea party in the garden for my birthday, but thanks to the rain it ended up being an indoor picnic.  We ate a ton of food, drank tea and took pictures with mustaches.  Here are a few pictures from a lovely afternoon...

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Brownies get in my stomach.

These are honestly some of the best things I've ever tasted.  It's like a chewy, chocolate explosion of yum in your mouth.

Ingredients:
180g milk chocolate
150g unsalted butter
125g plain flour
300g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
15g cocoa powder
¹/₂  tsp of baking powder
1 pinch of salt

 Directions: 

1.     Preheat oven to 180^o C.
2.     Melt 90g of the chocolate and the butter over a saucepan on the stove.

3.     Sieve the four, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.

 4.     In another bowl, beat the eggs, and then add the sugar and vanilla extract.

5.     Fold the melted chocolate mixture into the beaten eggs mixture, and then fold in the flour mixture and the other 90g of broken chocolate.

6.     Pour the mixture into a greased tin and bake for 30 minutes.

Now eat them.

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Baker Baker.

Last Friday night I baked these cookies and I must admit they turned out to be pretty darn good.  They're just the right amount of crispy outside, chewy inside for my liking.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 170grams of salted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of Smarties, 1/2 cup chopped pecan nuts, 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Melt in the microwave and cool butter in the fridge for 20 minutes, then set aside.

3. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking soda together. In a separate bowl, combine the butter and sugars with a whisk. Then add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla and mix everything together.

4. Slowly add the flour and baking soda mixture to the bowl until a dough forms. 

5. Fold in the smarties, pecan nuts and choc chips.

6. Put the dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

7. Take the dough out, then using a tablespoon, spoon out two tablespoons of dough and roll it into one ball. Take the ball and rip the dough in half. Place the ripped side down on the baking tray, and then take the second half and squish it on the first half. Leave about 5cm of space between each cookie.

8. Bake for 14-18 minutes or until edges are starting to get slightly brown.
9. Lastly eat and enjoy:D

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