They Called It The Diamond Blog

My Week in Rambles 7th November 2016

2016-11-07T15:23:00.003-08:00

'Catssssss ahhhhhhh Saviours of the Universe'

Me, age 25 and three quarters

Oh hi there. Welcome to my new style of post, which everyone else does but I never have. How you doing? Well that's great, now let's talk about me. After all, that's what you came here for (spoiler: modesty ranges from high to low throughout). So I've decided to write a bit more on here, I realised the main things I like writing are the rambles at the end of my blog posts so I thought I'd go wild and dedicate a whole post to it but under the guise of telling you stuff about my week (so cunning).

Anyway on to the good stuff, which mostly involves brownies, cookies and the wedding of the year!

This last week has featured my second fave holiday, Halloween, which I can say in complete contrast to my usual over the top celebrating I pretty much ignored. Aside from obligatory pumpkin carving (mine was supposed to be day of the dead themed) and making spooky looking matcha and white chocolate cookies, I did nothing to celebrate Halloween. No spooky films, no trick or treating, and no costumes...except swimming costumes. Yep, that's how I spent my Halloween, swimming at the local pool with my manfriend, Dan, in separate lanes because we are super cool. The cookies were seriously good though, expect a recipe for them coming in the nearish future.

When I haven't been at work, I've mostly been trying to sort out stuff with the solicitors regarding when we're going to exchange. If you've been following me on Instagram you'll know that Dan and I recently had an offer accepted on a house, if you haven't been following on Instagram then surprise!! The house is outside of London, we're going to become proper country bumpkins and we can't wait. We're also starting to realise that things are a lot slower in the country...including, but not limited to, getting an exchange date. Our mortgage broker has told us we should be able to exchange and complete next month but we're not holding out for it. Although I can't wait to move in and do a house tour for you all (think peeling wallpaper and a black bathroom suite...)!

Second to the stress of buying a house, I mentioned in my last post (literally right at the end), that one of my friends has been very ill. The great news is that after weeks of being unable to be moved she's finally back in the UK and is making amazing progress. Now she's back in the UK, I've spent this week trying to plan when our other two close friends and I can go and visit her. So we'll be making a road trip up North next weekend to see her and catch up, while also going off route to meet my friend's parents. It was actually her birthday while she was really ill and we haven't been able to celebrate it, hopefully we'll be able to sneak some cake and party bits into the hospital so she can have a birthday afternoon tea.

Which leads me nicely on to cake. On Thursday, Sophie (of Sophie Loves Food) and I took the day off work and got together to bake the best wedding cake in the history of wedding cakes for our lovely friends Persephone (of Persephone H) and James. Ok, P knew our strengths and weaknesses, so she convinced James to let us make brownies instead of a wedding cake. But if I told you me and Soph just made brownies it doesn't sound as impressive as a wedding cake now does it? Honestly I don't think I'll be able to face making or eating brownies again for a long time but it was worth it. P and James were thrilled, and we got lots of compliments from the other wedding guests. From stressing that it was going to look terrible and nowhere near wedding worthy, it actually look s pretty professional by the end. Also the brownies were incredibly gooey but then that's what over 30 eggs and 2.5kg chocolate does to a brownie. Sophie found the dark chocolate online through Amazon for 2.5kg it cost £22.70 (see here), if anyone is looking for an industrial amount of chocolate I would 100% recommend this brand, Callebaut. It comes in chips which is super easy to bake with and means you don't need to chop it up to put in the brownie mix. I've put the recipe below for 20 brownies which we multiplied up to make 105 brownies.

Best Ever Wedding Brownies

(makes around 20 squares)

6 eggs

550g caster sugar

600g dark chocolate (80%)

350g plain flour

350g salted butter

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line the bottom of a large rectangular baking tray. Crack the 6 eggs into a clean bowl and whisk in the caster sugar till it's frothy and white. The whiter it is, the more likely you'll get that crunchy meringue top that we all love on top of a brownie.

Step 2. In a pan on the hob, melt together 400g of the chocolate and all of the butter, stirring constantly to avoid the chocolate seizing.

Step 3. Once the chocolate and butter has melted, whisk your frothy egg/sugar mix once more so it's all white and frothy again, then slowly pour in the chocolate butter whisking as you go. Once the chocolate butter is all incorporated, add in the remaining 200g chocolate (either chopped into small chunks or as chips) and the plain flour, and stir to combine with a spatula.

Step 4. Pour the mix into the lined baking tray till it's about an inch in height. Bake the mix in the oven for 20 minutes. Once baked leave to cool a little, then chuck it in the fridge for a couple of hours (this makes it much easier to slice and super fudgy). Once completely cool, slice the brownies into sensible or unsensible sized squares for your eating pleasure. To get the edges really neat after we sliced them, Sophie and I pushed the sides of the brownies up against a large knife...brownie perfection.

Brownies made, Sophie and I met up on Saturday morning to assemble the brownies before the wedding at P and James's reception venue. We kept it classic, making a large pile of brownies and adding some red roses and white baby's breath, and lots and lots of icing sugar, which were the colours of the wedding. P's brother, Rory, arrived, mistaking us for bar staff while the actual staff were eating Chinese food, he left us with the task of setting up the beautiful cake P's Auntie had made for them to cut. I have never been more nervous in my life, trying to put that cake on the stand. I am genuinely proud I didn't drop it.

Following that, Sophie and I pegged it to Islington, grabbed a sandwich because by this time we were starving (by this time we were a couple of hangry bloggers) before running to Islington Town Hall for the ceremony. What can I say about the ceremony, I cried, Soph cried, the lady sitting next to me cried, so did P. It was lovely, and P looked absolutely stunning in her sequin J Crew number. Post ceremony, we all jumped on the wedding bus to take us to the reception. I've never been to a wedding in a pub before but it was absolutely perfect. The vibe was so P and James, the food great and the music was on point (P and James got every guest to add a song to their wedding playlist in advance). It was one of the most relaxed weddings I've ever been to and we couldn't be happier for them. I have to be honest by the time Dan and Sophie's boyfriend, Matt, arrived in the evening I was quite merry...which only increased with the dancing to follow. If you saw Sophie's insta story that day you may have seen a series of drunken singing videos of the six of us (mostly me, Dan and James). Our version of Parklife will go down in history...as being awful but hey we had a great time!

Sunday was not a fun day, contrary to the trending Instagram hashtag. I was more than hungover, I'm pretty sure I died and was reborn as some pitiful creature (similar to a Phoenix). It wasn't pretty, I wasn't pretty but there you are, life isn't always pretty. I spent my Sunday asleep, lying on the sofa wrapped in a duvet with my fellow hungover Dan and watching multiple Harry Potter movies.

So that was my week. How was yours? I should add I was so drunk on Saturday when a fellow wedding guest asked Dan and I as we were leaving where we going and did we want to come out with everyone after the reception, I told him no, he could not come home with us...so sorry fellow wedding guest, I don't even remember what you look like but I am sure the situation was awkwardly misread. Even in a full post about me I can't stop rambling. We need to sort this out. Don't worry I'll get the balance right next time. Have a great week!!

Comté & Bubbles, My New Favourite Combination

2016-10-31T07:24:00.002-07:00

'I put cheese above everything. My boyfriend, my friends and definitely lactose intolerants'

Me, a few moons ago

Several moons ago, on the night that I lifted my weight in cheese (see here), the lovely Megan from Got To Be Gourmet and, as importantly, Comté, invited me to a night of Comté and bubbles. The Comté was several different months old and the bubbles were sparkly. Even better than a night eating cheese and champagne, is a night spent eating cheese and champagne with some of your closest friends (aside from Megan), cue Persephone, Mike and Hannah. I should say, and it's probably quite clear from the cheese weightlifting (honestly I look awful, see here), that I was reasonably tipsy during the event and quite drunk by the end (see cheese weightlifting as reference). It's fair to say I had a great time, so did the rest of the gang, I can't say the cheese enjoyed itself but I can vouch for it's deliciousness.

I love cheese. It's obvious, I probably mention in almost every other post I write, even if the post has no relevance to cheese. It's in my blood. I'm not going to go on about how Comté is my Swiss Grandmere's favourite cheese, and how her and my mum raised me on it, and we have it in our fondue every Christmas Eve and New Year, but in short Comté is my life. So when Megan invited me to the Comté and Bubbles event I was all aboard.

For reasons I'll most likely mention at the end of the post in my usual waffle, it's been quite a while since I wrote a post and almost as long since this event and as such my notes which clearly made a huge amount of sense at the time I have now forgotten. Who am I kidding, I made no notes, just drunken scrawls, for example, for pairing number five I describe it as 'fizzy' and 'I ate it too quickly' so let's all keep an open mind when it comes to this write up.

First off I was running late. This is important because it signifies that I was too late to eat dinner and also missed the canapés when I arrived which may somewhat explain my cheese lifting behaviour. The event was held at the fantastic and beautifully laid out (a true insta cheese fans dream, it has wallpaper with the print of blue cheese mouldy on it...it's gorgeous, I want it in my house) cheesemonger Buchanans near Marble Arch. Seated with the gang, dream job idol, Patrick McGuigan, a wine and cheese critic (why is this not my job? Can I do this on the side?) talked to us about the history and production of Comté, and what makes it so special as a cheese. It's fair to say there is a lot that makes this cheese so special, cheese knockers (aka people who knock cheese to tell when it's ready), the particular region the cows are from, down to the grass they eat. I'd say this is a king of cheese, but the way it's made with everyone getting involved and coming together it's much more the people's cheese.

The first pairing was a 5-7 month Comté with La Gioiosa Prosecco 2015, as the name suggests this is a prosecco, what it doesn't suggest it's one of the best proseccos I've ever had. Available from Waitrose for £13.49 its a bloody bargain with a crisp finish and apple notes its beautiful. Paired with the cheese, the prosecco worked a charm complimenting the creamy texture of the young Comté with its grassy flavour leaving your tastebuds fresh.

Next up was the 12-14 month Comté with my favourite wine of the evening Cremant du Jura 2012 which is sparkling wine similar to champagne available from Aldi for the drumroll price of £7.49. £7.49. I can't get over it. It was delicious with hints of honey and sweetness. Thinking about it is just making me drool. The 12-14 month Comté was more to my taste than it's younger sister, I like a nutty Comté, a flavour which really comes across with an older cheese. This was probably my favourite pairing of the night.

On to pairing number three, a 19 month Comté made in the Summer with the first champagne of the night, Les Pionniers Champagne from the Co-op priced at £16.99. If I'm truly honest, I prefer prosecco to champagne, I often find the flavour of champagne too harsh. It's like it chews up whatever you're eating with it and spits it out again, as such you need a tougher flavour against a champagne which is why I think this pairing worked really well. The Comté was really strong, in a good way, it had a nice nutty flavour which was increased compared to the younger cheeses and it shone against the champagne.

Rosé was my first foray into wine. As a teenager the fact it was pink and it's often overwhelmingly sweet flavour made me a big fan far too quickly, I probably haven't touched the stuff since then. So when pairing number 4 was announced as a 21 months Comté with Ridgeview Rosé de Noirs 2013 I was initially disappointed. However the flavours of this British wine completely changed my opinion, sweet with honey notes but also nutty from the toasty flavours it paired perfectly with the more mature Comté, which was frankly a dream so nutty and almost crispy in flavour. I would definitely recommend purchasing an older Comté, the flavour completely changes, and I'd say a little goes a long way unless you're me and then you eat it all before you have even decided what to do with it. At £40 a bottle this is definitely not the cheapest bottle, but it has definitely converted me to the pinkish hued wine variety.

The final pairing and my favourite Comté at a grand old age of 30 months was with Billecart-Salmon Sous Bois a champagne at the more expensive price of £60. This is the pairing I famously wrote is 'fizzy'. Well that it was the champagne was very fizzy and much like champagne is quite strong and harsh but against the 30 month old Comté it was sensational. Or perhaps together they were sensational because the cheese was outstanding. Hard almost crystallised sections of cheese between meltingly strong nutty goodness. I could eat this cheese everyday for the rest of my life. It was outstanding. If you ever get the chance to try some, take it with both hands and get rid of whoever you're with so you don't have to share it.

Pairings over, the champagne kept flowing until finally, post cheese lifting, we were the very last people in the shop...for which I can only apologise to Megan, Patrick and the lovely owner, Rhuaridh, and staff at Buchanans (a really magnificent cheesemonger who hold a number of their own cheese and wine evenings). I had an absolutely fantastic time, thanks to Comté and Megan for inviting me, and I would truly recommend all the pairings and Comté we tried, particular the 19 month plus cheeses!

Thank you to Megan and Comté for inviting me to their Comté and bubbles event, although I ate copious amounts of cheese and drank way more wine than is proper on a weeknight, all opinions are my own.

Now for my ramble. Ok, this is a long one, grab your bubbles, grab your Comté (other snacks are not allowed). I'm going to do a bad bagel/terrible toastie/crap crumpet (that one doesn't work) story, so there's going to be some good news sandwiching a whole lot of bad stuff to explain why I have been absent. Good news, we're buying a house. For reals, this is happening, our offers been accepted and we're in the process of exchanging. We're super excited about buying a real live house complete with a garden in the country, there's also been a lot of stress involved in this as you can imagine but there you go. Bad news, one of my friends almost died, at least we were told that was what was going to happen, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because it's not mine to share but suffice to say we are overjoyed she didn't die and is still here with us (this is the second bit of good news). This has been 6 weeks since it first happened and it's only in the last 2 weeks that she's really come through. Suffice to say I haven't really known what to post here because it feels like posting like everything is fine would be a lie but now its better than we could have imagined. So that sums it up. If I've ignored your email or comment I'm sorry but I haven't been in a happy state to reply. Hopefully more blogging to follow!

Getting my Craft on at the Viking Arty Party!

2016-08-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

Recently Viking, the all powerful stationary company, invited me to a craft event, aka the Viking Arty Party. If you follow me over on instagram (lookie here) you'll see amongst the many photos of food, peonies and London, I also like to practice what some call 'modern' calligraphy. This basically means I can't do pretty traditional calligraphy letters so I ad lib (see unicorn cat, Albus Severus Potter and Riding Dirty as reference). So when Viking Stationery asked if I'd like to come to their crafty event where we'd be learning some traditional calligraphy (as well as block printing and mindful origami) I was super excited.

I was not super excited when on the day of the event my main manfriend, Dan, tried to help me get my stuff together and dropped my camera on the floor to which it semi-luckily fell lens side down, smashing the lens to pieces (insert thumbs up emoji here). On the plus side my camera body was fine, on the downside the most expensive and only short lens I own was not. This leads me on to my next tangent, never have I loved my mum more. Since I left home (a wee 8 years ago), my mum never ever comes to visit without giving us something, which is really thoughtful and normally always involves cheese (you can take the Swiss out of Switzerland...) which I obviously love. However, we live in a tiny one bed flat (standard London grade 1 style) with zero to zero storage space and often I have to say thanks mum for the 'make your own beer kit', 'humongus python skin' or 'bag full of beads and shells' (genuine gifts my mum has tried to give me...the python skin was my Great Grandads) but no thanks. Anyway luckily for me, my mum almost always 'forgets' to take the stuff with her, so it ends up in the cupboard of doom (the only storage we have in the flat) which is where I found the old film canon camera my mum gave me 3 years ago which had a detachable short lens.

I'm pretty sure the lens hadn't been used since we left the Falklands and as such it really needs a good clean! However, for a last minute 'Oh my God you broke my camera' replacement lens it worked well enough, don't you think? Anyway rushing to the Viking Arty Party, I had 0 time to eat anything before I got there but was rewarded with tea, pastries and the prettiest space ever. Like if my flat is Grade 1 London, Lumiere London is a 10. The hallway is deceptive as it's slightly shabby entrance leads you up to a space which is opulently gorgeous (#housegoals).

Oh so dreamy!!

Despite 'blogging' (rambling about everything and anything) for a while now, this was my first big (30+) bloggers event and I didn't know anyone. Literally no one. Which is actually a lot rarer than it sounds when you're a blogger in London. Anyhoo I'm definitely guilty of just hanging out with my besties if we're at the same event together (sorry not sorry), so it forced me to chat (not a difficult task) and I had a really nice time! After some chatting and eating (again both mostly by me), we were sorted into three groups to get our craft on. Up first was block printing with Tea and Crafting. I've done some block printing a few times but the kit they gave us was super easy to use, and Tea and Crafting run some great workshops (including hen dos, wouldn't that be the best hen do ever? Crafting followed by cocktails and caraoke [not really spelt with a c]). Viking Stationey had provided us with a magazine file (or as Dan says folder holder because it rhymes...) each to print on. I really like the idea of decorating a stationary set in this style, again when we have more space I'm sure it'll happen. The palm print that was floating about was super cute too.

Next up, the activity I was most excited about; an introduction to modern calligraphy with A L'aise, where we learnt traditional calligraphy techniques (but you said it was modern...I'm concussed! That's why I speak to myself in third person). Subject to popular belief I've always wanted to learn traditional calligraphy but my hand technique has always been shaky (aka I can't draw a straight line with a calligraphy pen without it looking like Harry Potter's scar). Turns out I'm doing it too fast, not surprisingly as I'm always rushing around like a man woman (hence the broken camera; home many brackets can I get in one post...). However, I've been practising slower calligraphy and the lines are getting less scrawly thanks to Viking Stationery gifting us with a calligraphy letter guide, pen and nib, as well as a pot of ink, which I've now almost finished. I'm never going to run a letterpress but you know I'm working on my friend letting me to do their wedding invites (and cake!...cake is unrelated).

After a break filled with several more pastries, it was time for the final act; Mindful Origami with Samuel Tsang. Think origami meets meditation meets positive quotes. I like origami, I've been making cranes since high school, as well as the occasional weakly folded elephant. This was more of an introduction into how you can be mindful while making origami, and then we made a crane. The examples of origami on the tables were pretty awesome, I really loved the flowers that were spread amongst us. You can tell because I took lots of photos of them...I can't say I was the most mindful origamist(?) at the event (I've only got so much meditation to go around) but it was an interesting session.

Overall it was a really fun day, meeting new bloggers, eating pastries and getting my craft on. Plus did I mention there was a goodie bag...oh yeah a goodie bag! Unfortunately this one had no cheese in but hey you can't always get what you want, but you can always get what you need...metallic sharpies, washi tape and plain white mugs to doodle on courtesy of the lovely Viking Stationery are all very much needed. So thanks a bunch Viking for a lovely day out and for helping me get crafty!

In other news, have I spoken to you about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child yet? So the script of the play is officially out, and Dan and I saw it two weeks ago with Sophie and her manfriend. I don't want to spoilt it but what did you think? Have you read it or are you holding off, waiting to see the play in action? I really loved the magic in the play I thought those scenes were executed AMAZINGLY, particularly in the first part (I mean like how did they do it? But seriously how?!?). The second part I thought the story became a lot weaker, I haven't read the script so I'm purely going off how it was performed. And though the acting of the Big three (Ron, Hermey and Harry), Scorpius and Draco was really believable some of the other actors didn't live up to it. As serious Potter fans, Soph and I left the second part disappointed but the magic certainly lives on in part one. In other news, I'm super busy right now with work moving offices so I'm really sorry if I haven't got back to you, it's not my intention, you know how much I love chatting! Also...four months till Christmas...just leaving that comment there...enjoy!

Thanks to Jennie who works for Viking Stationery for inviting me to the Viking Arty Party, it was great fun and I got loads out of it (including LOTS of pastries). And special thanks to Viking Stationery! All opinions are from yours truly!

'We Make Many Graffiti' - Reykjavik Street Art

2016-07-13T14:39:00.001-07:00

'We make many graffiti'

Anonymous Icelander

In an unusual twist of blogging today, this post is going to have considerably less waffle in it. That's not to say I'm not going to write two/three/maybe four paragraphs on Iceland graffiti, get sidetracked and tall about something else, constantly make reference to Harry Potter at every opportunity (I'M GOING TO SEE HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and use an unnecessary amount of punctuation. I'm just going to do slightly less of this than I would in my usual blog posts...because I'll be writing less...so really my writing will not improve in any way, shape or form (this is going to be a good post, I feel it).

If you've been following my blog you'll know this is my third (but not last) post on our (my manfriend, Dan, and I) trip to Iceland. For parts one and two, see here (apartment tour and our visit to Reykjavik) and here (Icelandic food on any budget and the best hot dogs you'll ever have). You know what parts one and two reminds me of? Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which, I may not have mentioned, I'm going to this week (!!!!HARRY!!!! [this punctuation is getting out of hand]) with my dear friend and fellow Potter fanatic, Sophie (she also bakes alot and blogs about it over here). Anyway to quote the famous anonymous Icelander, the people of Iceland make many graffiti and it is wonderful. I love graffiti, for my high school art A level (several moons ago) my projects were covered in spray paint and stencils, that is chicken stencils...my theme was against battery farming which I took very seriously...I even got a pet chicken (Kiki) who I would sketch in the garden as she attacked our dog (she ruled the roost...apologies). Anyway I digress, I've always loved graffiti, it's publicly available, can speak powerful messages or just be for fun, I like how it fits into it's environment, how it's not permanent and most importantly it's so diverse. Graffiti isn't just a word sprayed on to the side of a building, it doesn't even need to be painted, it could be made out of tiles, stickered or even knitted. Anyway graffiti can be awesome, it can also be offensive and normally always is illegal. Except in Iceland, they commission graffiti artists to create art everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

By the time I've finished this post, some of the graffiti that I've photographed won't be in Iceland anymore. It might have been destroyed or painted over but hey that's part of it's charm. This post is mostly photos of the graffiti I saw in Reykjavik but I'll point out a few streets/area which are definitely worth visiting if you want to hunt down the many graffiti of Iceland (as the Icelander said, they make many). The Laugavegur is the main street that runs across Reykjavik, here you'll find lots of shops and restaurants including the amazing Sandholt Bakari (those cakes!), quite a lot of the shops have commissioned graffiti on the front and side of them, my favourite was the black, white and gold valkyrie by Caratoes,who we saw painting it when we were there in October. Parallel to this street is the Hverfisgata, this street has a lot more graffiti than the Laugavegur, but you need to keep your eyes peeled for it, it's mostly hidden round the back of buildings and car parks, the best was a series of sepia painted photos from a scrap book by Ernest Zacharevic that took up the entire side of a house, beautifully eerie, this piece really spoke to me. Down town is also an area not to be missed, there's not so much specific streets I would recommend but just walk around and make sure you look up. Deih's spaceman who's cosmos is pouring out of his face into pools of galaxies was incredible. And finally there was the road our apartment and, more importantly, Reykjavik Roasters, was on; Njálsgata. If I'm deeply honest, my favourite on our little road was the feeder pillar sprouting weeds and grass up it's front, it's simple but I liked the idea of bringing nature into such an urban object (another A level art theme). Anyway my ramble is coming to an end (stay tuned for the final paragraph...) but wherever you go in Reykjavik you're bound to see some beautiful and inspiring street art, see below for a snapshot of the ones we saw and fell in love with.

Sneaky picture of Dan at the end for you there. What a handsome chap. Strangely this isn't my most photo heavy post...I'm sure we all remember the first tale of the Iceland saga, with our apartment and city tour, and of course who can forget the Lake District diaries (parts I and II). What can I say, I like taking photos (I once took 200 photos of a cake...). Anyway I hope you enjoyed it and let me know if you have a favourite piece of graffiti, wherever it is (I'm nosy). I'm so excited for Harry Potter/HP/His Royal Wizardness! I literally cannot wait. I officially have the tickets, my Hogwarts t-shirt is ready to go and I've already got the glasses. I have just finished reading all of the books again (it's my annual pilgrimage) and every time I get to the end I'm always like...but what happens next and now I'm going to find out! Did I mention I was excited? I did? WOO YEAH I DID! If you want to stay up to date on my excitedness (when I went to spell check excitedness it came up with conceitedness...I think they're talking about someone else) and for all HP action you should probably follow me on instagram (@theycalleditthediamondblog), I also practice shaky calligraphy on there, and post lots of photos of food and peonies (always peonies).

Burning Down the House, Ink, London

2016-06-08T13:29:00.002-07:00

'Burn everything and anything, and it tastes better; leeks, onions, the house [burning down the house!]'

Martyn Meid or Tom Jones...not a direct quote...

About 2 years ago now, I was invited to a blogging event that changed my life (big claim here, it's going to get emotional guys, grab the tissues). The event was held by Miele and it was a chef's table with Martyn Meid, the Nordic genius who burns everything (EVERYTHING) he can get his hands on. What I thought was a big blogging event turned out to be an intimate 9 course tasting menu for seven of us. It's one of the best events I've ever been to, the food was amazing, the atmosphere was really great and I had such a fun night. This in itself doesn't make the event life changing, but meeting Sophie and Frankie, definitely does. We speak to each other everyday, I hang out with Sophie more than any of my other friends and I definitely know more about both of them than I should. Anyway from meeting these two gals at the Miele event, I never thought we would be so close.

Becoming friends with Sophie and Frankie has opened us up to meeting more bloggers that we'd never met before. We're all grown women and we live in the digital age (urgh I sound so old, who says 'the digital age'...I think my boyfriend's dad does...) but meeting people through the internet can be scary and you should definitely be cautious. We play it safe by meeting new people together, so if one of us meets a blogger that they think is cool or someone approaches one of us and says hey let's hang out (this mostly happens to Frankie...she has one of those faces), then we'll meet them as a group rather than one on one. It just makes it feel safer for everyone, the new person knows you're not a psycho because they're meeting you with another blogger as well, and in the reverse if the new person is a weirdo you're a lot safer with your friends. That being said people invest a lot of time into blogging and I think you could tell from a personal blog if a blogger isn't who they say they are (it's difficult to get so many pictures of the same girl eating a burger in different clothes without actually being that girl), plus you know we've yet to meet any weirdos. I've made some really great friends this way too; Persephone alongside Sophie is one of my closest friends, she's the kindest person you'll ever meet and us all together with our manfriends/P's fiancé make a good little dozen for hanging out (they're getting hitched in November, and Sophie and I are making their wedding cake [ok it's brownies but, you know, still a cake!], which I am super excited about and cannot wait for them to tie the knot), Gianni is the not-so-crazy cat lady with a talent for penning short stories and the best laugh you'll ever hear, Hannah is hilarious and I really can't say anything else without being explicit, Mike is cool and I'm not just saying that because we have the same taste in music I mean he also knows where to get the best burgers in town (not exclusively London town either, I think you could tell him a city and he'd tell you where to eat), Emma is my food twin and the adventurer I wish I was (check out her latest trip to Vienna here), and then there's Lauren, a real sweetheart with the best fashion sense.

That was completely off topic but I just wanted to show you what could happen from spending the night enjoying the food of Martyn Meid. Since that event and probably every time Sophie and I get together we always talk about how great the food was that night, so much so that my manfriend, Dan, asked if we could go to Martyn Meid's restaurant, Ink, for his birthday. A night of great food and the possibility of a second life changing experience quickly settled me booking a table for two at Ink in Bethnal Green, for the 72 hour tasting menu after all it's not everyday your young man turns 11 (first Harry Potter reference of the post...Dan's not really 11). What's a 72 hour tasting menu? Well you tell Martyn 72 hours before your booking that you want to try that menu and he creates a 7 course tasting menu for you (without any food you dislike at your request) for £72 per person with a glass of wine per course. This has got to be the best price I've ever had for a tasting menu in London with wine, I'd even go so far to say it was one of the best tasting menus we've ever had (definitely up there with those we tried in Reykjavik, see post here, and our London favourite, Pollen Street Social, which was ridiculously expensive but one of the best meals of my life). The first challenge of the night, was trying to find Ink, unless you know where it is it's really quite difficult to locate, Frankie had been before and told me it was in an estate so we were prepared but we didn't know it was actually right in the middle of the estate. If you follow the canal from Bethnal Green you'll eventually get to some blocks of flats/offices and Ink is nestled on the end of one overlooking the canal. I really hope they get a good amount of traffic, because the food and atmosphere are excellent, but the location probably isn't somewhere you'd look to find a restaurant.

Anyway inside, white walls, comfortable laid back seats and dark wooden furniture simply laid with a sprig of lavender, create a clean scandi vibe, and I really like the use of large tree branches which cross the ceiling creating an interesting focal point where the rest of the restaurant is very sparse, as the day draws on their shadows are projected on to the wall providing a bleak but beautiful visual. An open kitchen dominates the right side of the restaurant as you enter, which is a great touch as you can see Martyn and his small team creating the dishes before they come out. As we'd already opted for the tasting menu with wine, we were presented two glasses of champagne on arrival and introduced to the sommelier who as well as introducing the wines to us with each course also acted as our waiter. The sommelier was the same guy I met at the Miele event, very down to earth and funny, he certainly got us settled in for a good night. The champagne was accompanied by a canape of a round of rye bread topped with pink grapefruit, borage flowers and salmon roe. It was beautifully presented, but personally I didn't think the grapefruit worked with the rest of the ingredients. I'm not a huge grapefruit fan, I wish I was, many a grapefruit cocktail has been ordered under the wish to have something clean and refreshing, and it be sour and just wrong (I have judged you grapefruit and found you wanting).

The next salad of peas, asparagus and onion, with a burnt onion ash and frozen yogurt was cleansing and fresh with a huge injection of sweetness from the vegetables, a world away from the confused canape. This was a very simple dish where the vegetables shone, I really enjoyed the frozen yogurt as it dissolved across your palette.

One big juicy pan fried scallop was served on celeriac puree with geranium leaves, edible flowers, and a trusty helping of burnt leeks and leek ash, was my favourite dish of the night. The scallop was sooooo good, when I had scallops at the Miele event before they were humongous, so I had big expectations (excuse the pun) but Ink didn't disappoint. This dish had the right level of sweet and saltiness, and although I knew you could eat geranium's it's not something I've actually done before so that was definitely a new experience and will be making it into our edible garden when we buy a house (#gardenambitions #webetternotbuyaflat).

The next dish of a pan-fried fillet of John Dory was served with a sweet langoustine tail and langoustine foam, with courgettes and pearl barley risotto. The fish was perfectly cooked and all the flavours married well together, it was definitely a highlight of the evening. This was the first time I'd seen a pearl barley risotto and it was really earthy and nutty, and paired very well with the fish. A perfect fish course finale.

The meat dishes were quite similar in a way as both were paired with a sauce flavoured with chocolate, which I won't lie I did enjoy but I would have preferred to have something different for one of the courses as they were quite similar on the palette. The first main was pork belly with a chocolate sauce, slices of radish, apple, leek and, of course, a burnt leek ash. I felt the sauce was quite rich and the meat was very fatty, which you expect, from a pork belly but it felt very heavy and didn't go together as well as the second dish where you had slices of iron rich lamb heart, watercress and a chocolate jus. This pairing was simply amazing, the chocolate sauce cut through the richness of the lamb heart and it tasted divine. I haven't enjoyed eating beef heart in the past (give me chicken hearts anyday, hello Sushi Samba!) so if this was on an a la carte menu I never would have chosen it for myself but I'm so glad this was on the tasting menu because it was just heavenly.

To finish the meal we were presented with a plate each of strawberry granita, blue berries, chantilly cream and pain perdu, while a very dramatic berry scented dry ice smoke blew across our dish. I loved everything about this plate, it was delicious and very easy to eat. I only wished there was more pain perdu, because I could have eaten a whole loaf of it! We were both deeply relieved it wasn't a chocolate dessert after the two previous courses!

I'll be honest by this time the 7 large glasses of wine I'd had were taking their time and I was very, very, tipsy bordering on drunk. As a consequence I'd stopped noting down what wines we were drinking and just noted our favourite, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc by Umbrele from Romania, sweet, crisp and refreshing it was glorious. Despite being 7 glasses of wine down, we couldn't help but order a final glass of this to savour after we finished our meal and cheered in Dan's birthday. As well as being one of the best meals we've had it was definitely one of the cheapest tasting menus we tried. Cheers to that.

Let's end on a high with this shot of the juicy scallop from Ink. Oh scallops, I love you. Scallops I do. I'm currently on a cheese diet after coming back from France last week, what that means is that I tell everyone 'hey I'm on a diet, cutting out cheese, bread and alcohol' but actually all that's getting me through this week is Sophie's cheese and wine night on Saturday. Dan and I have a box of stinky French cheese in preparation for Sophie's party. I'm not going to lie, it smelt so strong I had to put the cheese in a tupperware box, three cooler bags and a rubbish sack to try and drown out the smell...it didn't work. So apologies if you were sitting in the same train carriage as me. In summary the diet is not going according to plan, but exercise I'm getting behind. I think it's fair to say that since leaving university...last year...ok several years ago...I have done 0 exercise. It was a dramatic change from being captain of my sports team and exercising everyday to working full time and feeling like I had no free time to work out. I've finally realised that working full time doesn't mean I don't have time to exercise, it just means I have to plan it and I have to plan it. Tell no-one, but I'm now the same weight as Dan...I have no words. If anyone does have any, words that is, comforting ones not 'run fat girl run', feel free to drop them below. Closing out this pity post. Sayonara.

Feeling Homey with Uncommon Goods

2016-05-05T15:42:00.002-07:00

Something I haven't mentioned on this blog before is how me and my manfriend, Dan, are currently saving to buy a house/flat/shed/whatever we can afford in London (stop the front page). We've been together just shy of 8 years and I really want a place that is ours. As a bit of a DIY diva, for every flat we've rented I've dreamed about how we could improve it. This normally involves tearing down false walls, ripping up carpet and painting walls. Basically if you can't do it in a rented property, I want to do it. Unfortunately, I don't think our landlord would be too impressed if I went all DIY SOS (daytime tv anyone) on the flat. So we've made do and tried to make it our own while shaking off that university home style. You know what that is. Uni style is basically when you amass an array of mismatch items that just don't go together, pint glasses from your local appear in your cupboards (stop it guys you're breaking the 10 commandments) and things you find when you're drunk suddenly become wall art in your living room (aka the foam finger of this post, excuse the terrible photography, highway signs and magazine cuttings bluetacked to your wall).

Recently we've been having a lot of dinner parties and having people round (if any potential future guests are thinking of bringing a gift to our next dinner party see here) so I've been conducting my usual spring clean, and throwing out all the old uni homeware and replacing it with a more adult, collected but still kooky (I sound like my mum) Scandinavia theme. It was about this time that Uncommon Goods, a Brooklyn based company that sells designer, handcrafted and unique homeware and gifts, contacted me and asked if I'd like to include some of their items in our flat update. Would I? That's rhetorical, of course I would. Dan has essentially banned me from buying anything house related (to which I have not listened to at all) under the guise of what if it doesn't go in the new house? What if we spend our whole lives saving for a house and we never get one or the new wardrobe we desperately need because our current one is falling apart, what if that happens? Anyway back to the point, Dan said no to buying stuff but if I'm being sent it does that count? I quickly justified to myself that it was a no, and said sure thing to Tom from Uncommon Goods, keeping Dan fully in the dark till it arrived and I asked him to pick something up from the post office.

The gig was up when he picked up the parcel covered with some cool branding for Uncommon Goods promoting their charity scheme (they've donated over $1 million to charities worldwide!) and saying it had travelled all the way from Brooklyn in the USA. Rumbled, I quickly unpackaged it to reveal a variety of homely items to which he replied 'only you would ask for glasses with cats on'. I disagree, I think there's a huge market out there for cat-themed goods and it's not just cat ladies it's guys do (although saying it's not just ladies have you seen this cat lipstick by Paul and Joe???? I'm in love). Uncommon Goods sell more than just unique and hand-crafted products, they're selling goods that fundamentally are ecofriendly, and free from animal and human cruelty. In a world which is, unfortunately, still full of shops selling products created with pollution, slave labour and animal cruelty, I guess the question is why aren't you buying from Uncommon Goods. Essentially it's a way to feel good about shopping. Not only are you buying items you love, you've also helping to support charities that help sexual abuse survivors, provide victims of war with the means to provide for themselves and save the forests all in one purchase (how many people can say that!).

So what did I get to help the world? Well I'm glad you asked. Let's start in the kitchen (I feel an MTV Cribs coming on!). Uncommon Goods have a huge kitchen, bar and dining range (don't trust me, see it here), there were so many nice items that I stalked online. Uncommon Goods actually sell internationally, which is obviously great for me as I'm a London lady, based in the UK. Unfortunately for custom reasons there are somethings they just can't post out to the UK. So if you're in the USA make sure you snap up this agate cheese set, this humongous tub of sprinkles (I want these sprinkles, you there, friendly US reader, send them to me please?) and these crackled glass coasters. Anyway this utensil carousel by Joseph Joseph was my distract-Dan-by-getting-something-practical-and-much-needed item (phew that's a lot of hyphens).

Since Dan and I both went to different uni's then moved into a 6 person flat share in London before moving in together on our lonesomes, we have collated quite the mismatch collection of kitchen items. It actually drives me mad. Which sounds pathetic but there we go. The first thing I'm going to buy when we buy our first house, aside from you know a house and a wardrobe (see rant above), is a complete set of saucepans. Copper ones because I love the bling. When I saw Uncommon Goods stocked Joseph Joseph kitchenware I got super excited (yeah I get way too excited about kitchens and what? They produce food...and I love food...if that wasn't clear) and saw an opportunity to rid myself of the mismatched metal/plastic/wooden utensils that haunt MY SOUL/kitchen with this bright and modern utensil carousel by Joseph Joseph. I think this utensil carousel has single handedly improved the look of our very small (it's three cupboards, an oven and a sink small) kitchen, it's tied it all our insanely bright kitchen accents (mostly red and neon green) in one spin of the utensil's carousel. BIG FAN. Plus it distracted Dan from the other items in the box. Ultimate win.

Despite loving our light and bright flat, the one thing I really want when we buy our own place is a bigger kitchen. It doesn't have to be in a separate room to the living room but it'd be nice if it was big enough to, you know, swing a cat or have a toaster (this is no joke we literally have no room for a toaster and a kettle, sacrifices and tea had to be made). Having minimal cupboard space, the main issue Dan has with me is my love for glass and bar ware...not helped by Uncommon Goods extensive selection (see here). Damn, I'm late for my meeting...

My name's Flick and I'm a glassware addict.

I have so many gorgeous glasses, these green wine glasses from my mum were an absolute bargain at a boot fair for £5, I also have some super fancy cocktail spotty glasses my besties got me for my birthday and then there's my new Cat Tao Glasses by Patricia Carlin from Uncommon Goods (fellow cat lovers buy them here). These are my favourite. I'm not saying that because Uncommon Goods are making me say it against my will, I'm declaring my never ending love for these cat drinking glasses independently. I was so happy when Uncommon Goods sent me these, they're currently sitting on our open shelving unit (nobody puts cat glasses in the cupboard). Obviously the main pull for me is that the glasses have cats on. I love cats, I want to co-inhabit a home with one (reason we're buying a house #216). And I'm not going to lie, the fact that on one side they have the good cat being all fab and friendly, and then the bad-ass crazy cat on the other side is hissing, scratching and just generally being all independent feline. When my friend Kimi came over from Germany to stay at the weekend and I, as a good host must, got her a drink from a cat glass (only the closest of friends are permitted to use them) she said 'this might sound weird but it feels great drinking out of this glass' (it doesn't sound weird at all Kim, not sure why I direct quoted you on that but there you go). Kim wasn't talking about the yin and yang she was experiencing from the cat tao glass, the glass itself is incredible quality; it's really nicely shaped and the weight is great. Oh my God, get me into glassware anonymous pronto, I'm having a relapse!! While I'm relapsing I might as well show you these gold painted subway tumblers, these gin and tonic tall glasses, and these gorgeous petal wine glasses also from Uncommon Goods. Sorry not sorry.

The look of love is in the Octopuses eyes...or so says my new Sea of Love print by Jacqueline Schmidt from Uncommon Goods (see here). Dan and I are big DIY-ers, mostly because doing it yourself is almost always cheaper. However, there's one thing we hugely disagree on when it comes to DIY and that is art. I've always been very creative and to an extent this blog has been an outlook for that compared to my everyday job (I'm a biochemist, I know, you're all surprised but it's true. Me, kooky Flick, read biochemistry) but before I went to uni I had a place at an Art School which I had to turn down. I don't regret the choices I made, I've got a job with a great company that I really enjoy but I have missed all the painting, sketching and creating that I haven't really made time for since going down the biochem route. However, recently I've started sketching again and mucking about with calligraphy (mostly writing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings quotes, see here and here). You're wondering how Dan and I disagreeing about DIY is related to my sad-violin-art-school-that-never-was story (enough with the hyphens!). I'm going to tell you now. Basically, because me and Dan have been together since when I was famed to be the next Picasso, when I say I like a print he says 'don't buy it draw it yourself'. Two problems, one, my skills are no where near as good as they used to be and I think he believes I can draw better than I can, and, two, I don't like covering the house in my sketches. The odd one or two I draw I might be like yeah I love that let's put it up, but I like other people's art on my walls, which makes it more expensive, and leads back to Dan's argument.

Anyway. Moving on. Do you follow Jaime's blog Angloyankophile? It's basically my dream blog. Home decor meets food. If you're not reading it yet you should. In one of Jaime's posts (this one) there's this trio of whale paintings. I have drooled over this trio for ages, every time I see it on her instagram I stalk pinterest for similar prints for days. When I was looking around Uncommon Gifts website, I saw this Sea of Love print and I felt the same drooly stupor coming along. Isn't it beautiful? I love the black and white sketches of each of the marine animals. Being from the Falklands, I've always had a pull to the sea, I'm a little water baby. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the shore, seeing a killer whale while my mum was diving, so I'm pretty thrilled to have a print with a killer whale slap bang in the middle. I love and fear the sea in equal measure, and by fearing the sea I mean being afraid and in awe (in equal measure) of sharks so this print is perfect for me. Coincidentally I blame my shark love/fear relationship almost entirely on Shark Week and the shark attack videos they show, not cool guys, you ruined my favourite animal.The artist of Sea of Love, Jacqueline Schmidt, has got another print called Mates for Life, also on Uncommon Goods (see here), which is just the sweetest thing. I mean, who knew termites mated for life?

And now, almost four years on, our flat is finally feeling less student shabby and more eclectic chic. Let's end on a high, queue cat glasses.

So I guess you US readers are wondering what my address is so you can send me the sprinkles. I'm a bit confused myself because I've been all over the place these last couple of weeks. The week before last we went to Edinburgh to meet up with some friends from university. It was a great week, filled with lots of food and cake (hello love crumbs...check out love crumbsnow), and Innis and Fun (sorry Gunn, I mean the beer). My friend Kimi then came and stayed in London for an extra few days, I'd love to say we did touristy things but really we just sat around watching Pitch Perfect and Star Wars. Just to jump in, how much do you love the new Star Wars movie. I'm in love with Rey and Finn, and BB-8, I may have bought it last weekend and watched it twice in a day..and again yesterday...that may or may not have happened (it did). Then last weekend, I went to Brighton with my besties, which was amazing! I'm super looking forward to just chilling out this weekend though and taking some time to relax. I'm an extrovert who needs to constantly see people, but I think last week pushed even my limits. That said I'm probably going to forget all the running around of last week and go away again at the weekend, but hey that's what weekends are made for, right? What are your plans? It's going to be 25 degrees Celsius people, make plans, get outside, eat some ice cream. Or, alternatively, stay inside and eat ice cream. That works. In fact, I'm all for being an ice cream introvert this weekend, care to join me?

Thanks to Tom who works for Uncommon Goods for sending me my new Joseph Joseph utensil carousel that's brightening my kitchen up nicely, cat tao glasses (I LOVE THEM...in case you didn't get that from this post) and beautiful Sea of Love framed print. And special thanks to Uncommon Goods for the goods and, you know, saving the world! All opinions are from yours truly!

Eat Like an Icelander in Reykjavik on Any Budget!

2016-04-14T16:16:00.003-07:00

If you've seen my previous post on Reykjavik (see here) you'll know we stayed in a self-catered apartment through airbnb (apartment's listed here if you're a nosey parker) and we got hold of a lot of local produce that we cooked ourselves and ate in with a couple of Icelandic beers. However, we also went and ate out at least once a day, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. So I thought I'd compile a list of the places I'd recommend you visit if you want to eat out in Iceland. I've broken this down into food to go, casual dining and eating out like the fancy pants that you are, for ease of use. A quick note on food in Iceland; it's not as expensive as everyone says it is. Alcohol is a different matter (think London prices if not a little more for everything bar wine which is more like three times the price) but food itself is really reasonable. We ate at two really fancy restaurants for dinner, opting for their taster menus, and I think each meal cost us £65 per person which for me is beyond reasonable for 7+ courses considering you're looking at a minimum of £100 in the UK.

We didn't have a bad meal in Iceland, maybe part of this is because I research everything food related in the nearest 100 miles of where we're staying before we go away but I think a huge part is related to the quality of the food in Reykjavik.

If you're going self-catered and would prefer to cook in your apartment there's lots of great bakeries and a couple of butchers that you can go and grab some local produce from, which are all reasonably priced. Fruits and vegetables wise, if it has to be imported, it's going to be more expensive. However, Iceland grow a huge array of their own vegetables and fruits now, which is pretty cool when you think it snows for a lot of the year. We got all our fruit and veg from Bónus, which is Iceland's budget supermarket and the only one within walking distance of the apartment we were staying at. Things to try in Iceland are definitely their skyr (the thickest creamiest yogurt ever), their jams (this sounds like a weird one, but Iceland have a lot of unique berries so have a browse) and their lamb (if you're a meatasaurus like me, it's very reasonably priced and absolutely delicious)!

It's worth noting, you can't buy alcohol from general stores so either bring it with you, stock up in duty free, prepare to spend big bucks on it going out, or have a detox cleanse and go booze free. We bought about 4 bottles of wine with us and picked up a couple in duty free in Iceland, for the 8 days we were there. We didn't drink them all but it was nice to have the option of having a drink at our apartment first before going out.

Food To Go

Just want to pick something up and take it back to your nest or looking for a snack on the go? Don't worry I've got you covered.

Sandholt

Sandholt bakery located in the centre of town is your go to for all gluteny delights. If you fancy a smorsbord, open sandwich to you and I, or a bit of a sit down they have a reasonably priced cafe next door to their bakery front. But if you just want to grab and go, you're in luck because all the best treats are at the counter. We're talking cinnamon buns, cheesecake slabs and every berry you can think of pastries. You'd be surprised to know Iceland have a lot of wild berries which makes their pastries absolutely delicious, their raspberry one was divine and I pretty much ate an entire cheesecake slice to myself...in 2 minutes. They also sell chocolates made on the premises, granola, jams and chutneys, and sandwiches all to go, but the real stars are Sandholt's breads. Rye, Pumpkernickel, Sourdough, we picked up a small loaf daily and tried them all. Historically I've always said Germany has the best bakeries in the world but I think Sandholt could give them a run for their money.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur

I probably should have separated this out even further into a section on Hot Dogs. Icelanders love their American food, evidenced by the huge number of burger joints and, as a country that hasn't really embraced American chains, they have not one but two Krispy Kreme Donut shops (I just don't get the appeal). However, of all the American dishes available no food do they covet more than the humble hot dog. There are restaurants, stands in the street, shacks in the wall all selling this American favourite. It sounds mad. It is a little, but in truth I had the best hot dog of my life in Iceland for the grand total of £2, and I'm not alone (see what Forbes had to say here). The best place to get a hot dog, isn't even a debate. It's the smallest storage container you've ever seen, opposite the harbour. There is always a queue, whatever the weather. But it is always delicious. It's not going to change the world, at the crux of it it's just a really great hot dog. Have it with everything, wet onions, crispy onions, ketchup and mustard, and you won't be disappointed. I'm not upset to say it became almost a daily ritual to go down and grab a hot dog for lunch when we were exploring Reykjavik. It was so cold most days, and this humble dog really hit the spot.

Reykjavik Roasters

I fell in love with coffee in Iceland. Something I never thought I'd say coming back from our trip. I used to be a caffeine fiend. Early grey, green tea, good ol' English breakfast, I couldn't get enough of tea. It wasn't till I started working full time and drinking 5 or 6 cups of tea a day plus a sneaky morning coffee, that I realised I was suffering with tension headaches and what felt like migraines all the time if I didn't get my regular cuppa at work. Reality is I was a caffeine addict, after unintentionally going cold turkey on holiday for two weeks and experiencing the worst flu like withdrawal symptoms I kicked tea out of my life, substituting it with hot lemons and caffeine free red bush. But in Iceland I couldn't resist a sneaky Swiss Mocha. OMG the Swiss Mocha! It's dark chocolate bitter with earthy coffee tones and a touch of sweetness, but a little sour from their whipped cream. The coffee I had in Iceland was by far the best coffee I've ever had. It's the God's truth I swear. And our favourite coffee stop, Reykjavik Roasters. Two reasons really, firstly it was on the same road as our apartment so became our go to Pitt stop and secondly it serves the best coffee in the world (not like in Elf, it really does). The guy that owns it trained as a roaster in Denmark who are famed for their coffee roasting secrets, and you can tell he picked up the trade well. I've yet to go to Denmark though so who knows maybe I'll have to revise my best coffee in the world award. Since coming back from Iceland, a cup of coffee has become my little weekend pleasure. Only one cup though, I'm not crazy, plus if I have more than one caffeinated drink per day I get the shakes now but hey no more migraines! Definitely check out Reykjavik Roasters if you're a coffee lover heading to Iceland, it's super cute inside, all white washed with dark wood and bright blue accents. Plus they serve cakes, did I say? I didn't? Sorry, they serve cakes, really, really good cakes.

Casual Dining

Fancy rubbing shoulders with the locals head to one of these casual eateries for quality food, great beer and a welcoming atmosphere.

The Lebowski Bar

You've seen the movie, now eat in it. It's uncanny how much it feels like you're on the movie set. I'd read about this place before hand and thought it might be cool for a couple of drinks. A couple of drinks turned into a whole day sitting at the bar, chatting to the other stool holders, watching the football as it poured it down outside. It was actually a really great day helped by the accompaniment of Icelandic beer, burgers and a buzzing atmosphere. Oh the burgers, they certainly won't win any beauty pageants but I'd eat them anyday. Our Honey Boo, honey glazed bacon cheeseburger with jalapeño mayonnaise and bbq sauce was meaty, cheesy, smoky goodness with just the right amount of grease to combat the several...pints of beer we drank. It was a solid burger, eaten alongside some cheesy jalapeño bites with salsa, which although weren't filled with spice were incredibly moreish. I washed all this down with a banana milkshake, followed by a chocolate peanut butter milkshake, realising a third milkshake was greedy I switched to some local Icelandic ales on recommendation from the staff behind the bar, who, coincidentally, were incredibly friendly. I genuinely loved this place and honestly I can't recommend you go enough.

Icelandic Fish and Chips

Breaking up the burgers is the Icelanders take on fish and chips. Although I saw so many fish and chip restaurants in Iceland I genuinely don't know who invented them anymore, was it really the UK? Google can't tell me. This one in particular, I'd heard good things about. Upon our visit it was quite late in the afternoon but still a bit early for dinner. We sat down next to another traveler and got chatting about places we'd loved in Reykjavik, her artist son and the best graffiti in town. We ordered the Ling with paprika onion rings and a mango superfood salad (they have superfood in Iceland? You bet they do Bloggerico) with two dipping sauces made with Skyr, basil and coriander. The dipping sauces with the deep fried ling and crispy tempura paprika onion rings were heavenly together. I probably ate half the bowl of onion rings before I remembered we were sharing. We savoured the mango salad having not had much fresh fruit. Overall not your average British fish and chippy, but something a lot more tasty.

Prikið (Prikid)

Prikid is the oldest cafe in Reykjavik. It's been open for over 60 years but inside it's the ultimate hipster hangout. Dark leather booths, wooden clad walls, hip hop pumping from the speakers, there's a girl and a guy at the bar producing her single, this place is seriously cool. Not being the hippest gal in the world I'd be in danger of feeling really intimidated except the atmosphere is totally relaxed and the staff friendly. We grabbed two burgers one with blue cheese and jam (put jam on my burger everyday) another with béchamel sauce and bacon. Both are delicious, but I think my jam burger just beats Dan's (GIVE ME ALL THE JAM) the fries are crispy and there's a touch of sugary salt on the sweet potato fries an American fave that I am totally behind. We chilled out while it threatened to snow outside, opting to drink Swiss Mochas and soak up some of the Prikid's cool vibes.

Eating Out Like The Fancy Pants That You Are

Want a banquet of tasting dishes for less than £70 per head, look no further.

Fiskmarkaðurinn (Fish Market)

The first of our two taster menus in Iceland, I'd read so much about the Fish Market before we went. The sister restaurant to the Grill Market famous for it's meaty dishes, the Fish Market focuses on seafood (the name kinda gives it away) with some Japanese influence. As I said previously, we didn't want to eat any endangered animals so we asked if we could swap the puffin and whale courses on the taster menu for something else. Without any issue these dishes were changed to tempura rock shrimp with a jalapeño dressing and melon, and a dish of grilled mountain lamb with Jerusalem artichokes, confit of lamb shank, pickled beetroot and fried mushrooms. Before I tell you how much we loved our replacement dishes let's talk cocktails...and, more importantly, whipped butter. What can I say about whipped butter (it's life changing), it's softer, creamier and sweeter than normal butter and four times more delicious, it's almost like clotted cream. They bought it out at the beginning with some delicious raisin rolls and my Lord it set the meal off right. We opted for cocktails as wine is super expensive in Iceland and cocktails are yummy. Can I just say, this restaurant is beautiful, we started with a drink upstairs in the red velvet seated area with it's tree trunk tables and golden accents, and ate downstairs in a dark almost rainforest esque urban dining room. Honestly it's possibly one of the nicest looking restaurants I've ever eaten in. The spacing between the tables was perfect, definitely a very intimate venue (why are you talking about table spacing? I don't know. You're gushing. God I am).

The courses are all served on sharing plates and they came out often two at a time. Bread was followed by Arctic char, cooked perfectly served with an edamame purée and cauliflower, delicious bar the dried cod fluff which covered the dish like snow whose texture I found a little unpleasant. Crispy fried baby squid rings with an oaty crumb were succulent served with a refreshing chilli and lime dipping sauce, I could of eaten a whole bowl to myself. Then our replacement vivid red rock shrimp tempura with jalapeño dressing and melon arrived. This was my favourite dish of the night, the flavours were right up my street, aka fusion Japanese food, it was fresh, spicy, zingy and oh so good. Dan and I fought over the tempura shrimp to the very end. The Icelandic national dish (sorta, I mean it is served EVERYWHERE) of Langoustine soup with mussels was rich and sweet, with the most dramatic dry ice presentation. Definitely the prettiest presented soup I've ever eaten. Beginning to feel rather full a plate of sushi arrived, scallop sashimi was delicate and sweet while Salmon volcano rolls were decent. This was followed by Robata grilled salmon, probably my least favourite dish of the night as I'm not a fan of cooked salmon, but it was very refreshing served with a fennel and apple salad with crispy fried lotus root. Then came a dish (yeah there's more) that changed my perception on what's good to eat. Lightly salted cod, served with lime zest, cranberries, potato purée and celery salad had me so confused it just sounded so wrong together, but when I ate it...it all worked! It was creamy but sweet, with perfectly cooked flakey cod, absolutely delicious! Our final savoury dish was the grilled mountain lamb with lamb shank, this is probably one of the best lamb dishes I've ever eaten. It was so rich from the lamb and the wild woody mushrooms but this was all lifted by the pickled beetroot and accompanied by a deliciously dark almost chocolatey sauce, which was so delicious Dan and I, fully stuffed at this point, found our second stomachs to polish off this dish.
The final final final dish of the night was a dessert platter. Covered with fresh fruit, we devoured all of the fruit before even touching any of the dishes, things I'd normally shun like melon went down the hatch in my excitement to eat more fruit. Of the actual desserts, there was a delicious bowl of sweet white chocolate cheesecake with a popped rice crumb and passion fruit, pineapple and vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, a chocolate fondant cake filled with gooey caramel, and a licorice and raspberry lava cake which erupted with dry ice. By far my favourite, fruit aside, was the cheesecake, it was so yummy this also went into my second stomach alongside the pineapple and rapsberry sorbets. For me the chocolate cake, although delicious in flavour, was a little heavy for the end of such a big meal. Similar feelings were held about the lava cake whose moussey texture and strong licorice flavour didn't sit well with me at the end of what quite honestly was a banquet.

At a total of 11,400ISK (£64.50 to my British friends) per person this is one of the most reasonable priced tasting menus I've ever had. Especially when you think it's for 9 very substantial courses! It may be fine dining but the food is not fine dining sized. If you like fusion food and fresh, clean Japanese flavours

Sjávargrillið (Seafood Grill)

We weren't planning on going out for two fancy dinners in Reykjavik. But on our final night and because we'd walked past it all week we last minute decided to go for dinner at the Seafood Grill. When we got there we decided to go for the Grill Party menu. A taster menu that promises to leave no one hungry while showcasing Iceland's best produce. Again we asked to forgo any whale or puffin, which was no problem. My favourite thing about this night was that they mistook us for being Icelanders which pretty much made my whole trip. I felt like by mistakenly being called an Icelander they thought we were a cool hip couple, which obviously we are but hell yes to being Icelandic! Plus the staff were super friendly and they really made you feel at home.

Anyway again we ditched the wine for cocktails, I opted for a salt and pepper based gin cocktail which was definitely a new one for my tastebuds but not unenjoyable, while Dan obviously went for the most girly looking drink on the menu, served in a Devil style glass this was sweet from the berries but tasted like you'd made it in the woods with pine essence, absolutely delicious. Whipped butter, liquorice flavoured bread, and a small appetiser of raw scallop and dill (not pictured) kicked off the meal nicely. Followed by the traditional langoustine soup with mussels, although it didn't have as dramatic presentation as at the Fish Market I did enjoy this version more it was rich, tomatoey and really smooth. Served alongside this was a dish of fatty pork belly and sweet langoustine, served with a rich and sweet langoustine sauce and topped with a delicious bechamel sauce (yeah we're double saucing) and a flavoursome ash, it was my favourite dish of the evening. Cured actic char with horseradish skyr and microherbs was a refreshing change to the first two rich dishes. Next up was our least favourite dish, shag or cormorant as it's commonly known was smoked and served with blueberries and a blueberry sorbet, truffle, Ísbúi cheese and crispy rye bread. On paper it sounds delicious, but cormorant is a fish eating bird and we just couldn't get over the fishy meaty taste. We're just not used to eating seabirds in the UK, for me this dish would have been perfect with some venison or duck. A dish of code with leek ash and leeks. with dil oil and herbs, and a saffron sauce was meaty, fragrant and some of the best cod I've ever had, the portion itself was huge. Next up, rump steak with potato puree, roast shallots, dill oil and a red wine reduction was tender and overall good, but maybe could lose the dill. Next to this was a grilled portion of mountain lamb served on a hot coal bbq, which had really nice flavour and made a change to all the saucy dishes.

Maybe one of the reasons why I really liked Seafood Grill was the double desserts. First up dill sorbet, white chocolate mousse with white chocolate shards, oaty crumble, raspberries and raspberry coulis was refreshing and sweet all at the same time, which was an absolute win. Followed by vanilla creme brulee, strawberry sorbet and sorrel granita, wild strawberries and cream was beautiful. I love creme brulee, I think it's a family thing or at least it runs in the maternal side of my family tree.
Overall at 9900ISK (£56.20) per person if you are looking for a fancy way to end your trip in Reykjavik this is definitely one for you, definitely look it up for a more relaxed fancy dinner.

So that's it that's the full review of what we ate out in Iceland, I hope you enjoyed it, let's end on a high with a picture of a Swiss Mocha. Ohhhhhh Swiss Mochas, take me now!

Woah that was a long post. How was it for you? And now all I want is a Swiss Mocha, if you didn't get that from my last sentence. I literally can't wait to go back to Reykjavik, it's made but we're already planning our next Iceland exploration. Wooo yeah! Iceland! But before that we're heading to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks and I am so excited to stay with some of my friends from uni. It'll be the first time we've seen each other in a couple of years so it'll be great to catch up and just chill out exploring the city. So if anyone has any suggestions on where to go in Edinburgh drop me a comment below. I really want to visit The Kitchin, and Scran and Scallie, also Love Crumbs have been teasing me for over a year with their Instagram account full of all my dream cakes. I literally have a list on my phone of at least ten places in Edinburgh, and you don't want to see my London Brunch List (it's ridiculous...ly delicious looking). Speaking of coffee. Wait, when were we speaking of coffee? Well you mentioned brunch. Oh right. So speaking of coffee, if anyone knows where to get a Swiss Mocha in London let me know ASAP. Till then, I'll be here, chilling, dreaming of Swiss Mochas, burgers and langoustine soup!

Cider Crumble Cake with Rhubarb & Waddlegoose Cyder

2016-04-11T01:25:00.004-07:00

I'm a hot house plant. I'm not one for sitting outdoors in the cold, indoors is where I thrive. Don't get me wrong I love the winter, hosting big dinner parties eating baked cheese (like this yummy Comte fondue), drinking hot chocolate while snuggled up on the sofa in my pyjamas, thick woolly socks and hidden under blankets while watching the latest episode of something awesome (currently rewatching season two of the OC for my Summer fix), and of course if you wrap me up in multiple layers (coats, hats, the whole shebang) I'll be the first to make (and instantly regret making) a snow angel before running inside for a glass of mulled wine. But Summer, Summer is my time. I'm not going to lie I win at Summer. I just do. It helps that all my European blood (Swiss/Italian/Excellence...I'm sorry I'll stop soon) has made me able to withstand the hot Summer temperatures, my love of food and easy cooking has given me great BBQing skills, and I excel at ALL Summer activities (sunbathing, swimming, sunbathing etc. [you get the idea]).

So yeah it's fair to say I'm looking forward to Summer. And I'm starting to see it coming round the corner. Rhubarb, probably my favourite and most underrated Summer fruit (or is it a vegetable? who knows...google apparently), has started appearing weekly in our local green grocers, and my mum recently gave me a huge hall from her little garden. My favourite peonies are appearing in Columbia Road Market, a sure sign Summer is almost upon us, and as such my boyfriend is overdosing on hayfever tablets. And of course there's my ultimate favourite Summer place, beer gardens. Beer gardens are upping their game, planting flowers, getting the umbrellas out, I even went to one with a BBQ the other day; combining all my loves. Grabbing a chilled pint of cider and sitting outside is looking pretty darn tempting right about now.

I've always been a cider and ale gal. I grew up in the Falklands where home brewing (of a sort) was pretty common, and since we moved to England I've always worked in cider and ale pubs (secretly/not so secretly being a bar maid was probably one of my favourite jobs, the people, the atmosphere, it's a good laugh). So when Aspall got in contact with me about sampling some of their new brand of cider Waddlegoose Cyder (find more information and where to purchase here), me and, to a larger extent, my mum jumped at the chance. My mum's actually the biggest cider fiend I know, and Aspall is her FAVOURITE British cider, no jokes, she's obsessed! She actually gets a bit snobby if a pub doesn't sell Aspalls, which is a bit much but there we go, she's a lady who knows what she likes.

Aspall sent me two different flavours of Waddlegoose Cyder, Three Berry (we're talking blueberries, raspberries and, the rare Summer fave, blackcurrants [OMG blackcurrants are the best, blackcurrant jam is amazing, blackcurrant cider is incredible]) and their sparkling apple version of their cyder. To put it simply this is a really crisp refreshing cider, a lot of people don't like the whole dry aspect of cider and this is a great alternative to those versions. Waddlegoose Cyder uses modern brands of apples that are designed to give a fresh crisp taste and you really get that in the finished cider. I like a good flavoured cider but I like mine to still ultimately taste like cider. A lot of companies go for the wild flavoured options but in truth they taste nothing like real cider which is a shame but then is grapefruit really cider material, I think not.

Personally I can't wait for the weather to warm up just a tad more so we can step outside, crack open a bottle of Waddlegoose Three Berry cider with some ice and wheel out the barbie (not long now!). Till then I'll be opening a bottle of Waddlegoose Cyder at 5pm every weeknight, and maybe indulging in a slice or two (definitely two) of Cider Crumble Cake with Rhubarb. You knew it was coming, it's in the title of the post, also it's too delicious to keep from you. I wasn't sure about baking with cider. I ummed and ahhhed over it. What if it made the cake to wet? What if I had to put so much flour in the cake it just tasted awful. But then you know YOLO (this is what yolo was invented for; baking indecisiveness). I'm just saying as well, Rhubarb Cider. Why's that not in a bottle? I think I've had it at a cider festival once and I've definitely had rhubarb beer (weird but good) so someone should make it happen. Maybe that can be Waddlegoose's third flavour (just throwing it out there).

The rhubarb in this cake is yummy, especially with the cider and extra appley goodness. I made it a bit spiced and chucked a crumble on top because Rhubarb Crumble is amazing, and it seemed wrong to make a cake with rhubarb and no crumble topping. Do without the crumble if you must, but you're at your own peril...Also definitely save a bit of the rhubarb stewing liquor and whip it up with a little bit of double cream for a thick rhubarby accompaniment to this cake. It's gorgeous!

Cider Crumble Cake with Rhubarb and Waddlegoose Cyder

(makes 1 large loaf and maybe a few cupcakes...serves eight or you know 1 hungry blogger)

300g chopped rhubarb (2 cm pieces)

190g caster sugar

210g salted butter

60ml water

150ml Waddlegoose Cyder

90g dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1 medium apple (I used a Gala, which is one of the apples used to make Waddlegoose Cyder)

1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

Pinch of nutmeg

325g plain flour

1 heaped tsp baking flour

Step 1. Stew the rhubarb. How do you do that? Stick all the rhubarb, 40g butter, 100g caster sugar and 60ml water in a saucepan and cook it on a low-medium heat until the rhubarb is soft and cooked through. Strain the rhubarb, keeping the juice and leave it to cool.

Step 2. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Peel and roughly chop the gala apple into small bite sized pieces. Put the apple in a bowl and cover with the Waddlegoose Cyder and set aside. Grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Step 3.Cream together 150g butter, 75g caster sugar and 75g dark brown sugar till light and fluffy. Then stir in two eggs, followed by 300g sieved flour, the baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger and a pinch of nutmeg.

Step 4. Once cool add the strained rhubarb, and the apple and cider to the cake mix. Stir to combine, if it looks a little loose add a touch more flour. Mine was fine, but everyone and every kitchen is different! Pour the cake mix into the loaf tin and set aside.

Step 5. Make the crumble topping. Rub together 20g butter with 25g plain flour, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 15g of caster sugar and 15 of dark brown sugar till it looks like bread crumbs. Sprinkle the crumble topping liberally over the top of your cake. Then bake it in the oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius on a medium shelf (you might need to put a foil hat over the crumble if it looks like it's going to catch aka burn).

Step 6. Take the cake out the oven and leave to cool...slightly. It's so good served warm with sweetened cream with some of the rhubarb stewing liquor (3-4 tbsps liquor to about 75ml cream). And maybe a cheeky glass of Waddlegoose Cyder...you know...to enhance the flavour of the cake.

So how are you guys, how was your weekend? I haven't eaten so much in ages. Double dinner partying is a lot of fun but a lot of food! We're talking veggie moussakas, pizza, enough prosecco to bath in. It was great but I could do with another lie in round about now. I'm so excited for Summer, writing this post made me realise how much. I absolutely can't wait for Wimbledon again. I'm a huge tennis fan and haven't heard back from the ballot so I guess we're queuing again. This will be the third year that we've queued (you can read all about last year and sample my foray into Sports photography here), and I'm going to be a lot more prepared this year because last year it was absolutely freezing! I'm slightly sad though, because if you read my blog routinely you'll know my best friend, Louie, moved to New York at the end of February and he, obviously, is not coming back for Wimbledon. Which is sad because we always watch it all together and, yeah, I don't have any other tennis friends save my Grandmere so ermmm basically if you're a tennis fan, mostly normal, and like strawberries and cream fancy queueing for Wimbledon together? I'm mostly normal too...sort of. Not really. I just baked cider into a cake, that's crazy.

Thanks to Mai who works for Aspalls for sending me some of their new Waddlegoose Cyder. I'll definitely be cracking one out after this post is published! And special thanks to Aspalls as well, and get on that Rhubarb Cyder. All opinions are from yours truly!

Egg Wars: A New Yolk

2016-03-24T14:13:00.002-07:00

I wanted an epic name for this Easter egg review, I think this fits. I debated about Game of Eggs - Easter is Coming and Lord of the Eggs - The Fellowship of the Egg, and Dan suggested Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Eggskaban, but in truth I'm so excited for Star Wars to come to DVD in May (SO EXCITED) there was only one real option. Why was an epic title needed? Because this is the battle of the Easter chocolate, an egg to egg if you will. I'd very generously been sent an Easter Egg from the chocolate Gods, Lindt,who I've collaborated with before to bring recipes like Blueberry Cheesecake Brownies and Dark Chocolate and Malbec No-churn Ice Cream into existence. And the lovely Bettys had also sent me a couple of Easter goodies to try.

When I found out Bettys was sending me some treats I was so excited, just to put that excitement in perspective it wasn't that dissimilar to my feelings about Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming out. This might sound a bit over the top, but let's take trip down memory lane to when I was 17 (yesterday...) and got my first actual paycheck working for a butchers as opposed to, you know, the dreaded cash in hand £3 an hour wage. What did I do with said first paycheck? I took my mum out for afternoon tea at Bettys Tea Room in York. It was perfect. Apart from you know my Swiss and Falkland Island roots, the dark side of my family is from Yorkshire. Last weekend my mum and her boyfriend came up to visit us and she bought up our trip to Bettys, it's nice that some days (ok several years) on we can still talk about how good their cornflower tea is. Having sampled some of Bettya chocolate they sent me, plans are definitely in the works for making a return visit!

So as the most spoilt girl this South side of London, let's crack on with this Egg comparison shall we (the puns run all the way through this post, I can only apologise for any emotional damage caused)?

Lindt Cookies and Cream Egg

Do you like Lindt chocolate? Yes is the only reasonable answer to this question. If you are Lindt inclined, hey there, let's be friends. If not, you should probably scroll down to get to the other eggs in this post...or you could leave (we wouldn't have worked out). In short what's different about this egg to the other Lindt Eggs on the market? Not a lot if you take the egg on it's own, but it shines best when accompanied by it's mini cookies and cream bars. Cookies and cream chocolate is my jam. I literally can't get enough of it, my manfriend (Dan to those in the know) had to hide the egg from me after I ate all the bars in an hour. This is not an eggsageration (huhhhhhhhhh?). Definitely one to pick up if you are a fellow Cookie Monster, plus you get a lot of chocolate for your buck (£8-12 depending on your store of choice). I can't see this one on the website, but I've definitely seen it in Sainsburys and Waitrose for sale...I'd say you should buy one from there but strangely I think they're all going to be sold out where you live; heard some crazy lady is driving round and clearing everyone out of this egg (it's not me, I can't drive...).

Betty's Champagne Truffle Eggs and Milk Chocolate Hare

Where to start with these Easter treasures. I am an absolute sucker for champagne truffles and these champagne truffle mini eggs are amazing. Also look how pretty they are, those little icing flowers are adorable. These eggs are mini versions of their large Imperial BLOOMING (pun intended) gorgeous egg which is decorated with an array of spring flowers, I love the ferns that frame the whole thing. It's so pretty and five kilos worth of chocolate...no joke...this is so huge it would last you till next Easter. My little chocolate hare probably isn't going to last me until then, I give it 5 minutes after finishing this post. It's so sweet and cute and I love that Bettys' sticker acts as it's little fluffy tail. Also can we all just aww over this badger? Aww (I feel so much better having done that).With it's cream packaging and metallic olive ribbon this chocolate is fancy and should be kept for fancy occasions such as Thursday evenings, weekend elevenses or you know just now (you gotta treat yourself!). So be fancy and get yourself some Bettys' chocolate, or be even fancier and visit one of their tearooms (take me with youuuuuu!).

Marks and Spencer's Beehive Honeycomb Egg

Traditionally my family spends Easter together, with a huge brunch, eggs covering the table and, what is starting to become a trend (which scares me a tad I thought it was just my crazy family), Easter decorations. What's an Easter decoration, we're talking paper mache eggs, fluffy chicks, maybe a couple of nests. All the Easter decorations. I've started seeing some Easter wreaths on our street, is that a thing? I don't know how I feel about it. Anyway the point of that ramble was that I'm not seeing my family this Easter. My mum has to work and my brothers are all away, which is rubbish, but my mum and her boyfriend did send me and Dan loads of Easter goodies, including two Beehive Honeycomb Eggs. They are gooooood. The chocolate, is chocolate, in all honesty it's not as nice as Bettys and I'm not a huge honeycomb lover (Dan's bloody wolfed his down), but the heather honey truffles it comes with are delicious and I don't normally like caramel. It's given me big ideas for Summer ice creams with chocolate and honey...so what this space because we all know I love a no churn ice cream!

Montezuma's Peanut Butter Mini Eggs

These peanut butter mini eggs are my mini Easter present for Dan. One of our favourite chocolates is the Montezuma's peanut butter bar. I was so happy to find this because I'm obsessed with the American peanut butter m&ms and they're so expensive to get over here, but this chocolate is even better. It's definitely not for everyone it has real peanut butter in the centre with a chocolate shell around it. I can't wait for Dan...yeah I mean Dan...to eat these. Or at least open them so I can eat them. Am I a bad girlfriend? Maybe. Are Montezuma's peanut butter mini eggs amazing? Yes. So we've answered all the questions. And on that note I hope you enjoyed this egg to egg, I know I have.

You didn't think this post was over did you? I see you sneaking on to another post. Come on, this is our time. You tell me how your week's been? My week has been excellent, why? It's a four day week! Woooooo! Yeaaaah! 4 days!!! That should be enough for most people but I also met with some of my favourite bloggers last night, it's so secret that me, Sophie and Frankie are close, some say too close but I say you need to hang out with me, Sophie and Frankie more. And then there's Emma, she's fab, currently in Vienna eating cake but made time to see us before she left. And Gianni, my foodmate, it's like a soul mate but with food. I've said it before but one of my favourite side effects (for want of a better description...can you tell I was a biochemistry major?) is the friendships you make through blogging and that side step from blogging friends to real life, I've met your loved ones, family and your parent's dog, friends. So yeah dinner last night was fun, if a bit loud (what is it with restaurants and club music, just stop). This weekend we're just going to chill and take it easy, have some blogging turn real life friends over for cheese fondue (it's the only thing I really cook now), oh and brunch...lots of brunch. So what's your plans? TMBYL (tell me bout yo life)? Or, alternatively TMBYE (tell me bout yo Easter)?

Thanks to Mai who works for Lindt for sending me my delicious Lindt Cookies and Cream Easter Egg and thanks to Amy from Bettys for my Easter Chocolate Hare and Champagne Truffle Eggs. And special thanks to the chocolate gods that are Lindt and Bettys! All opinions are from yours truly! And I 100% that you go, sit on the sofa and eat some Lindt Easter Egg with a side of Bettys champagne truffle eggs. Or you know just blow the bank and get Bettys Imperial Egg (#yolo).

I Left my Heart in Reykjavik - Apartment & City Tour

2016-03-16T02:51:00.001-07:00

At the end of last year I fell in love. I should say we fell in love, because there's two of us in this relationship. Dan (my long term man-friend) and I, fell head over heels for Reykjavik, the small, urban and hip capital of Iceland. I've always wanted to explore Iceland. Coming from the Falklands they have a similar climate, sparse beauty in it's environment and wildlife (we're talking whales, seals and sea birds), oh and a couple of Icelanders live there too. Chuck in a few penguins and a sea lion, and Iceland's practically home. My family has always talked about going back to the Falkland Islands (East side baby) but with return flights costing at least a couple of thousand pounds per person, it's a dream that's long been in the pipe line. So when Dan started mentioning he wanted to go to Iceland, I did the kind of reckless thing I am prone to doing sometimes and booked flights...without looking for somewhere to stay, checking if I could get the time off with work or even asking Dan (how do you think I booked our trip to go to Edinburgh...queue one semi-mad phone call from Dan). Yes, I agree I can be a tad unpredictable, but in truth I prefer the word spontaneous; it sounds more fun and care free, and less manic and volatile.

Flights booked, I found a cute little central apartment on airbnb to rent for 8 days (it's this one if you're nosey), and Dan proceeded to be, what I like to call, a sensible salamander buying us ski jackets and thermals, while I bought several very unsensible pairs of heeled boots and a super short shirt dress as my Iceland appropriate clothing. After a super quick flight to Iceland (I can't believe it's only 3 hours from London) we landed and I hate it when Dan's right.

It was bloody freezing.

Never have I been so grateful for Dan and his ski jacket, thermal layers and general sense. As we stepped off the plane I was so cold I almost didn't see them...the Northern Lights. Even in Iceland, it's rare to see them and we saw them stepping off the plane. Can you believe that? It was incredible! They're so beautiful, how the molecules collide, it really does look like they're dancing across the sky. By the time we got on the coach and were fast approaching Reykjavik I realised I hadn't even taken a photo, just as the driver told us we probably wouldn't see them again while we stayed in Iceland because of the cloudy forecast for the rest of the month. Not going to lie I was gutted (SPOILER - wait for the end of the post).

I was a bit nervous because despite having really only ever gone on holiday in self catered apartments (we're not one for big all inclusive getaways) we'd never used airbnb before. But having had some good recommendations from friends, we went for it and I have to say I'd 100% recommend this apartment. It's location was PERFECT, it's right off the main road coming down from the Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland's largest church which acted as our navigating point round Reykjavik. This road alone has some of the best bars and restaurants, despite being on one of the main streets tourists walk down to get to the church which could make it get a bit too touristy it's just so not. I have a whole other post planned on places to eat and drink in Reykjavik so look out for that (this food cannot be missed!!).

The apartment itself was small but super cosy and chic, by the end of our holiday I didn't want to leave. It really felt like our home. The simple, stylish Scandinavian decor and furniture is something I'm trying to replicate in our own (sort of) London flat, but where stylish Scandi furniture is freely available at a low price in Iceland, I've yet to find pieces in England in our budget (waaaaaah! send help and links).

Did I mention the apartment was on the same street as Reykjavik Roasters? The best coffee we had in Iceland. I didn't? Well I'm telling you now. Go, get a Swiss Mocha. Get two and pour one into a thermos flask, put the flask in your hold luggage and bring it back for me (preferably on the last day, I don't want off coffee). Oh Lord it was so good, chocolatey but bitter and sour, and I've run out of amazing adjectives to use about this coffee! As we were staying in self-catered, one of us would nip out of bed each morning, walk to the coffee shop and back, maybe even venture down to Sandholt Bakery (SPOILER - best baked goods in Reykjavik) to buy a loaf of pumpernickel or seeded bread, and some pastries (we ate LOTS of pastries). And then we'd just get back into bed with said coffee and pastries, it was dreamy. We really embraced the slow easy lifestyle of Reykjavik's inhabitants.

I'll cover this in more detail in my post on eating out in Reykjavik, but everyone always says how expensive Reykjavik is compared to the UK, particularly when it comes to food and alcohol. By far, wine is expensive, so if you want to drink some while you're away pack a bottle in your suitcase. Apart from that alcohol is pretty much London prices, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. Foodwise, I think it's cheap. We had two major fancy meals that would have cost a bomb here in the UK and probably averaged about £65 per person, which you rarely ever get in the UK for a full tasting menu (Ink being the only exception I can think of, which coincidentally also serves Nordic style cuisine). Other food out was equally affordable. But to save a couple of pennies because we had some pretty special tours planned (what's that you want to hear more about the tours, you've got it, they're coming up in my other post about Iceland), we opted to eat breakfast in (save buying coffees and pastries, because live a little) and the occasional lunch, like this open sandwich...with salted horse. It was not our intention to eat horse in Iceland. I'm not against it, my family's Swiss and horse is commonly eaten there and in France. Although I have eaten it before, I'd never chosen to order or cook it myself. That is until we bought it thinking it was beef in the butchers and I have to say I enjoyed it (queue stones being thrown at me). It's got a real gamey rich flavour that you don't really get with any other meat. The Icelanders produce horse meat as a by-product of breeding horses for racing and work. I'll be honest, I've never been a horse person but the Icelandic horses changed that, and if I'm honest because of this I probably wouldn't eat it again (call me a fickle meat eater if you must).

Don't we all feel better now that's out in the open.

Moving on, as I said the apartment we stayed in was right next to the main street (Skolavordustigur) which has the Hallgrímskirkja at it's peak. Not only does it have the best bars and restaurants, but it's also painted like a rainbow, it's an instagrammer's dream (at least this instagrammer's). The Hallgrímskirkja is a church which houses an absolutely huge organ, honestly, is there a bigger organ, anyone know, anyone? It's incredible, you can walk round the church for free but 800ISK will get you a ticket to go up the tower. From there you'll get a full view of Reykjavik's streets, the view of the mountains opposite (on a clear day), and you can try and count the number of different coloured houses (I got 1481). It's a great way to see the city and put things on the map as it really is the highest building around.

Just next door to the Hallgrímskirkja on the right is the Einar Jónsson Museum, you can pay to go inside and wander round but all his best work is in the sculpture garden which is free to get into. Outside you'll find several bronze casts of some of Einar Jónsson's sculpture's, most of which feature the Norse Gods or Christianity in it's various forms. They're incredibly modern concepts considering they were created in the early 1900s, definitely worth a visit even if you're not an art buff. In addition I would like to name this Cat Garden 2 (Cat Garden 1 being in Broadstairs, Kent) as there must have been so many cats trying to get your attention walking round (note to travelling cat lovers; Icelandic cats do not respond to normal cat calling).

While we were in Reykjavik, the majority of the time it was cloudy and a little foggy, but of course, like most Northern countries it rained...then snowed, hailed and was even so hot we walked around in t-shirts...in October (it was unreal). Despite the slightly sodden weather, the city is small and full of plenty of good bars and coffee shops to shelter in while strolling around. One thing we really wanted to do was climb Mount Esja, which watches over Reykjavik from the other side of the harbour. I'm not a big planner but this was one of the main things we wanted to do so I mapped it all out, how we'd get there on the bus, what route we'd take etc. What I didn't count for was how much snow was going to be underfoot, we spoke to a couple of locals and decided not to risk it based on, you know, the fact we didn't have crampons (this was seriously left out of my online research! Also love that Icelanders all have crampons). Luckily, although we didn't get to climb the mountain, we did get a couple of clear-ish days to see it from the harbour, and it was spectacular! If you're going in the Summer I would definitely say give Mount Esja a go, take some photos and tell me what we missed (mild boasting accepted on this occasion).

At the harbour's tip is the Opera House. As expected it shows operas, concerts and plays, there's a cafe and restaurant inside. Why did we take a visit if we didn't plan on seeing anything? Because the building is gorgeous, it's like one of those surrealist paintings where you try to follow the stairs but they're constantly falling into each other. The glass making up the buildings is all different asymmetric shapes and colours, plus it's got pretty good views of the harbour and Reykjavik. It's also opposite the stand that sells the best hot dogs I've ever had so you should really go...for the hot dogs...also maybe the views. At night it's lit up like the Northern Lights, which is also pretty awesome.

From outside, Reykjavik's city hall is an imposing hulk of concrete on the shores of the beautiful Tjörnin pond, not the most hugely aesthetic building to me but you know one woman's weed is another woman's rose. But walking inside, there's a small waterfall covered in water plants on your right and then a humongous 3D map of Iceland's terrain, it's incredible. It's all to scale, so you can see what the highest peak is, but for me the amount of glacier shown is just crazy. It kind of makes you understand why the people and animals are so sturdy (can I call an Icelander sturdy? I mean it with the upmost love and affection). Outside the pond makes its way through a park that is studded with more bronze statues, this one, what Dan likes to call the working man, with weight upon the statues shoulders I like to think is a message to take a break and not let it get you down (so I'm going to have a piece of cheesecake now and I hope you'll join me because if you've made it this far through the post I applaud you, you must have Icelandic roots, you sturdy reader).

From Reykjavik city hall, you can walk out of the city, through some woods to Perlan. Literally named after a pearl, it's a viewing platform with a neat restaurant (sensing a theme of everywhere having good restaurants? me too) and an indoor man made geyser, which is pretty cool to watch. From the platform you can see 360 degree views of the city and that's where you can see the mountains watching you on all sides. It's pretty beautiful and very, very cold. Take a ski jacket, take several ski jackets, and buy a Swiss Mocha while you're there. Of course this was our moment to take some cheesy touristy pics (hope you enjoy, there's more where they came from!).

One thing that's quite strange is that there is how little trees there are in Iceland. Coming from Britain where the woods are plentiful and luckily we have loads of great organisations like the Woodland Trust campaigning to keep Britain that way, it was weird to see. From speaking to people, they say Iceland used to be covered in trees but when the Vikings arrived they chopped the entire population down using it to build homes and for fuel. Today, they're trying to reintroduce trees to Iceland, mostly pines, but you won't see many in and around the city. Their goal is to up the number of trees covering Iceland to 5% of the land mass, which doesn't sound like a lot but a lot of the land is glacier. They're currently not even at 2% but you know we all have long-term goals.

Dan may have done a little jump for joy when we can across this little wood full of trees. Sometimes I think he likes trees more than people.

BOOM!

What was that driver talking about us not seeing the Northern Lights again because of the cloudy forecast, what cloudy forecast! Ok, so it was cloudy but on the night before our last day in Reykjavik we saw them. We'd deliberately not gone on any tours because everyone we spoke to said we wouldn't see them but every night from our flat window we drank some wine late into the eve, played card games and had what I like to call Light Watch. Basically we'd turn off all the lights and stand there in the dark looking out the window (super creepily) trying to see if we could spot the Northern Lights. We had kind of given up hope, then we saw them. I grabbed my tripod put several layers over my pyjamas, and Dan and I ran down to the harbour to get a better view of them, thinking that'd be the darkest place in the city. It was beautiful and I'm so happy we got to see them again in such a great setting. We met people that went on tours the same week (even the same night as us) and didn't see them so I would ditch the tour and make Light Watch part of your evening routine.

There are several tricks to photographing the Northern Lights so if you're planning on going I'd definitely do your research first. The long and short of it is a slow shutterspeed, high ISO and higher aperture. Also I would say you HAVE to get a tripod, it doesn't have to be pricey (mine certainly wasn't) but all you'll get is blur otherwise because you want to set the shutterspeed for as long as possible. You can see the sun voyager (that's the boat) in my photos is still a bit blurry but that's because my tripod is quite light and even weighted down it was super windy on the harbour arm.

We did so much stuff in Reykjavik a lot of which I haven't featured. I'm not going to lie, we left that little flat feeling like we were leaving our own home. It's definitely somewhere I'd like to visit again and ideally live there (just need to expand my Icelandic vocabulary first!).

Anyway things I haven't featured that I would recommend doing in Reykjavik:

- Visit the National Museum of Iceland; this was so interesting, Iceland has a really bloody and violent past. The country has undergone different countries rule, religions and still come out on top. When we were there they had an exhibition on feminism. In Iceland they have wage equality between the sexes which came from 99% of women in Iceland going on strike and standing in the streets for a day (CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT, it's amazing, Iceland's amazing, I love you).

- Go out late; people in Iceland usually don't go out drinking or eating till later in the evening because they start their days later, the bars are heaving around 12am and it's a lot of fun. So live like an Icelander and drink (sensibly) till dawn.

- Trawl the streets for Graffiti; Iceland has some of the best graffiti I've ever seen. Street artists are commissioned to paint everywhere which adds to the town's colourful appeal. I have a whole post coming up on where we saw some of the best graffiti but keep your eyes peeled because it literally is everywhere, on the side of the road from the airport, on warehouses by the harbour, on your own apartment, it's EVERYWHERE.

Things I haven't featured and would not recommend to anyone, EVER:

- Ellidaárdalur Valley; doing my research before going this valley was recommended as a must see in Reykjavik by EVERYONE, and I mean everyone, blogs, tripadvisor, Iceland's tourist board. Avoid it. You can get the bus there or walk through the industrial side of Reykjavik, on getting there you realise it's just a park surrounded by a motorway which you can hear on every side and it's super loud. Despite Reykjavik being a really clean city this park was like a rubbish tip. Just no.

- Kolaportið Flea Market; something which was recommended by a blogger based in Reykjavik. We did buy the blue rucksack you can see on Dan there and his hat, but the majority of the stuff is overpriced touristy bits or charity shop style stalls (not the one's where you'd find a gem in either). There's also a food section but it's all frozen which put me off if I'm honest. Give it a go if you like but don't go with the expectation of finding a bargain, go with the expectation of being in a crowded warehouse with a lot of tat and expensive souvenirs.

God this post has taken me so long to put together. It's going through all the photos. This contains maybe a tenth of the amount of photos I took (if that) and it's my most image heavy post ever. Hope you enjoy that. Did you get to the end? Is anyone reading this? Have I been deserted? It's ok, if you did make it to the end, have some more cheesecake, I know I will. Going through these photos has made me miss Iceland so much. The plan is to learn to drive then in a couple of years hire a campervan and go the whole way round the country. We really stuck to Reykjavik for this visit and it'd be nice to see the other side of the Island, visit the waterfalls in the South and the glaciers to the East. I literally can't wait. I have three other posts on Iceland to come which I can't wait to share with you all, one on eating out, a graffiti guide, and, the crème de la crème, The Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon (take me back now!). If anyone has any questions or is planning a trip and wants some recommendations drop me a comment below and I'll do my very best to answer them.

Till then,

Bless Bless

Feasting like a Boss at Berber & Q

2016-03-02T09:00:00.002-08:00

Let's talk about shawarma baby

Let's talk about shawama and me

Flick, They Called It The Diamond Blog

I feel like I have spent a lot of time recently eating round Haggerston lately, but with so many good places cropping up who can blame me? No one. We've sampled the newly opened Chick 'n Sours, Duke's Brew and Que, and Berber and Q. Basically all the and's and q's. Coincidentally I have been to all these restaurants with my friend Louie, who is finally left London to go and live in New York after years of threatening to do so.

Before he left, his one request (alongside going to Hawksmoor for breakfast, bowling, karaoke, being reckless at Club Propaganda [I had to draw the line somewhere, plus I hate clubbing]) was to visit Berber and Q. As huge lovers of Lebanese food, of course Dan and I said we'd accompany him, and by God am I glad we did. We were the kings of meat that day (vegetarians turn away now).

First off, Berber and Q doesn't take reservations. I have mixed feelings about these types of restaurants because, you know, firstly the food is normally always incredible, but secondly, I hate waiting out in the cold especially now when it's bloody freezing. A lot of places have started just taking your number and giving you a call when the table's ready, I am a huge fan of this, this saves lives and prevents frostbite. Berber and Q doesn't seem to do this but it does have a little bar area where you can stand inside and on a weeknight, we only had to wait for a table for 30 minutes which is pretty darn good considering the food is (SPOILER ALERT) A M A Z I N G.

Inside it's like an old railway arch, with exposed brick walls and an arched ceiling. The glints of copper and gold, and definitely the Fez lampshades give it a Middle Eastern feel. Long communal tables make for good sharing seats and we got chatting to a German couple next to us, good job really because the food is messy and you're going to be sharing a lot more than that by the end as you tear into chunks of meat and pitta. Seated, the staff were super quick and friendly. We ordered a round of cocktails. Louie went for a Sarah Naarda, a gin based cocktail with hints of elderflower and violet, and very prominent lavender; it definitely wasn't to my tastes but he loved it. Dan opted for the Harissa Rose Mary, a deliciously spicy take on the Bloody Mary with real smokiness from the smoked vodka, yummy but definitely a pre dinner drink and not during because it became heavy with the food. Whereas I pretty much won with my Gal Gadot. Cucumber infused gin, watermelon, mint and rose syrup all the components shone although I could have left the watermelon out and been just as happy. Rather than order starters, which would probably have been sensible, we asked for all the food to be bought at once...not sensible.

Oh the food, just thinking about the lamb shawarma is making me salivate. We went for three different meats. The lamb shawarma, this was our absolute fave, was deliciously moist, rich and smokey and went so well with the garlic sauce (oh the garlic sauce, be still my, just, still beating heart). The smoked chicken thighs with apricot glaze and dukkah, was spicy and fruity, but compared to the lamb didn't hit the spot for me. The smoked short rib with date glaze syrup looked impressive as a huge hunk of meat bought to the table, the flavour was certainly spot on but the actual amount of meat on there was definitely deceptive (lots of bits were inedible due to being so caramelised) and as such it was a bit disappointing (especially when you consider the cost!). But the highlight, aside from the lamb, was the lamby juices that dropped onto the pittas beneath them. Oh they were glorious, we had to ask for more pita to soak up the goodness.

The sides were also great, dirty fried rice with sumac and barberries was something I remember eating and loving growing up, the crispy rice was just delicious and those little barberries burst in the mouth with lemony freshness. Having never been a big fan of hummus the boys ordered a plateful and I can honestly say this is the best plate of hummus I have had in my life. Creamy and oily but not claggy it was pure heaven. However, my rogue choice (that the boys vetoed but I ignored) of roast beets with whipped feta and saffron candied orange was the real star. I barely got a look in and definitely didn't get a photo as the boys dived in without me. It was so good. Earthy, sweet, salty, creamy, with a whole lot of texture, I dream about this dish a lot. In fact, I dream about Berber and Q, and the lamb pita, garlic sauce and beets constantly.

I adore Middle Eastern food (not all of it; I've had my fair share of lamb porridge as a child and I can tell you for free it was the single worst thing I've ever eaten...and been forced to eat...again...and again), and Berber and Q nailed the simplicity of it for me. I would 100% recommend visiting Berber and Q but stick to the lamb, drown it in garlic sauce and dip it all in a plate of hummus.

Where the hell did February go? One moment I was booking Louie's leaving breakfast at Hawksmoor (oh my Lord it was delicious) thinking that's so far away the next moment it's March and he's gone to the Big Apple. As Lou's been living with us on and off for the last month or so (his rent is paid in the form of doughnuts and cinnamon buns), it's been a bit strange coming home without him being there. Dan and I kind of got used to it, although it's super refreshing to have our own space again, it did make me miss having housemates (you know ones' where the emphasis is on the fact you're mates not that you live together with people you would never, ever, EVER socialise with otherwise). There is a Louie shaped hole in our hearts and sofa (mostly sofa - being mean to Louie is our coping mechanism as is hanging out with our good, made up, male friend Doug who I keep sending Louie messages about on whatsapp...am I weird? Don't answer that). Anyway since Louie's gone, I have been making lots of plans with all my other friends (hi guys sorry I didn't speak to you in Feb, kidding), we're planning to go to Brighton at the end of March with some buddies, going to the theatre (sounds more sophisticated than saying I'm seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and hanging out with some blogging friends eating food this weekend (which I'm super excited about). Love a good food market. In addition if anyone has any restaurant recommendations, why have you not left a comment yet? Sort it out. Hope you all have a cracking week!

Getting Back to My Roots with Comte Fondue

2016-02-29T07:02:00.003-08:00

'I don't like cheese.'
Said no-one, ever

When Megan (blogger at Got To Be Gourmet meets PR extraordinaire) from MBA asked me if I'd like to receive some Comte cheese to make a recipe for Mothers Day (#MothersDaytheComteWay, can I replace Mothers Day with any holiday, or just you know a Monday. Let's be honest it doesn't even need to be a Monday), I had to think for 0 seconds. In what has to be the quickest reply email I've ever sent, I played it cool and said sure why not. I totally played it cool. 100%. Like an iceberg. I can tell you I didn't reply and out myself as a 'big' cheese fan, or you know go down the whole I'm Swiss so give me the cheese route (why do the Swiss only get aggressive over cheese?), and I definitely did not follow up anxiously when I had yet to receive said cheese...two days after receiving Megan's initial email. So yeah I'm the picture of cool.

Assurance of me being cool aside, I really love cheese, it's a family weakness (at least on the maternal side, who knows about paternal, who cares? No one, moving on). Being French Swiss, my family is full of cheese lovers, my Grandmere's favourite is Comte, my mum's Gruyere, and I can't choose a fave (I'm like Brucey on Strictly Come Dancing, they're all my favourites). So every time we make fondue the fight goes down about what cheese we should use. It normally ends up being a combination of Gruyere and Emmental, Comte and Emmental, or a mix of all three (who's bringing the Emmental to the table, nobody knows) depending on who's cooking. But having spoken to my Grandmere only the night before about how much she misses Comte and having sampled how good the Comte was that Megan sent me (plus you know, Mothers Day, and my mothers certainly love fondue), I decided to make a Comte fondue all on it's lonesome (sorry Mum) and it was, in my boyfriend's words, the best fondue he's ever had. Which actually could be seen as kind of rude about my Grandmere and Mum's cooking, albeit one time my mum had a bit too much wine before making the fondue and used red wine instead (JUST NO), but you know what I'm not going to complain because it really was the best fondue I've had in ages. And I friggin made it. Me. The least Swiss person in my family of Swissanites.

No words can describe the amount of national pride I'm feeling right now.

I received three maturities of Comte, 10 months (think mild and creamy, but so moreish), 18 months (still in the packet, waiting to be demolished) and 24 months (dense, nutty, sour flavour; good Lord it's the cheese form of crack!), but decided for this fondue I'd use a mix of the 10 and 24 months. For the smallest of moments I regretted putting this cheese into a fondue, but then I ate the fondue and all was forgiven. This cheese is made to be melted with wine, on it's own it has a real tangy sour flavour (in a 100% good way) but with the wine it's enhanced ten fold.

At my Grandmere's we always have fondue with boiled potatoes, a white baguette, and pickled onions and cornichons (she also puts kirsch in hers, I'm not a huge fan so I leave it out, try it with kirsch at your own peril). My mum serves it with cheesy bread (for extra cheesiness), salami, saucisson sec and olives. I like mine with garlic butter covered baby potatoes and mange tout, par-boiled carrots, Parma ham, olive bread and pickled walnuts (for the innuendo but also because they're delicious). If you're new to fondue, where have you been? But also go for the classic accompaniments of saucisson sec, garlicky potatoes and baguette, maybe some pickles for Granny's sake. Don't be afraid to dip anything, and I mean ANYTHING, into your fondue. I caught Dan dipping leftover steak in, I wasn't upset about it, just disappointed he didn't bother sharing any. So go wild, dip some marmite soldiers in, asparagus, maybe a cat (do not put cats in your fondue), all in the name of cheesy glory, oh and Mothers. It's all about the mothers.

On to the recipe!

Comte Fondue

(serves 4 or 1 Swiss person)

400g Comte, rind removed and grated

1 garlic glove

180ml white wine

1 tsp cornflour

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

Black pepper

Step 1. Chop the garlic clove in half and rub the bottom and sides of a heavy based pan with it, till it smells like true love (I mean garlic).

Step 2. Place the pan on the hob and bring 150ml of the white wine to the boil. Reduce the head to a simmer and add the cheese a handful at the time stirring continuously in a figure of eight (Swiss tradition, you can just stir it normally if you're not Swiss) till melted before adding another handful of cheese until there's no cheese left.

Step 3. Once the cheese is all melted, mix the leftover 30ml of white wine with the cornflour and stir into the cheese with the lemon juice. Season with black pepper and serve immediately with garlicky potatoes, chunks of crusty bread, carrots, mange tout or Grandmere's trusty pickles.

Step 4 (also know as the when eating the fondue step). When you dip in to coat your appointed dunking object with cheese, make sure to dip and swirl the cheese as you go to stop it setting. If the cheese does set and become less runny, chuck it back on the hob and let it melt down again on a low heat with a generous glug of white wine, give it a stir and resume dipping off the hob. Or on the hob, if you can't wait, actually you could just forgo making this as a family affair and eat it yourself, alone, at the hob with a family sized baguette for one.

Happy Mother's Day

Ok, so after last week's running disaster, I think my glamorous life as a track star has come to an end (or at least for this week). 2 miles into our run I tripped over a glass bottle that smashed and I fell on top of, taking the skin off my knees and legs. Luckily no large shards went into my cuts, and Dan was right in front of me with a bottle of water to wash out any flecks and strap me up with his t-shirt (my hero!). Obviously my knee jerk reaction was to cry but once I was over that omg the overwhelming stench of raw meat. Never have I wanted to be vegetarian more (hello more cheese recipes). The world is telling me not to run, even the pharmacist said this is why people shouldn't exercise. So seeing as I can barely stand up without tearing the skin on my knees open, I think running is off the cards till it heals (albeit I did go for a run on Sunday but the pain is real guys so it's a no go this week). In the mean time I need to keep my strength up with a combo of reading Harry Potter (for the gazillionth time), lying on the sofa and eating Nutella out of the jar. I call it the LIT work out (not to be confused with Louis Litt from Suits; don't get me started on Suits). Feel free to leave your hilarious exercise stories, monologues on times you've hurt yourself and cat videos below for me to peruse while LIT-ing (it's a thing). Also anyone taking part in #MothersDayTheComteWay drop me a link to your recipe below, this body needs more cheese.

And remember the moral of this story is do not exercise, healthcare professionals are telling you not to. And cheese calls all ails...did I not mention that?

Thanks to Megan from MBA and Comte for sending me a box of the finest French Comte around, eat Comte and know what I mean. All opinions are from yours truly! Want more information about Comte? Visit their website (link here).

Black Forest Brownies

2016-02-15T14:28:00.002-08:00

I know what you're thinking. These look like they were made for Valentines Day and posted late. You'd be wrong my friend, although it is true I made these brownies on Valentines Day, I made them to try and combat the joyous activity my boyfriend had planned for both of us...a 5k (almost, 4 and a bit doesn't sound as good as 5) run round the lake. Perhaps to some this sounds romantic, a lovely jog together, serenading each other as we stride side by side; to me this sounds like the end of our 8 year relationship together (I'm kidding/waiting to see whether we have to go for another run next Sunday).

The truth is I really want to enjoy running. I really do. And I want to have the flattest stomach this side of instagram. But I also really want to eat brownies, in my pyjamas, all day. Which is why my washboard stomach and abs of steel (they are there!) are hidden behind, what I can only describe as, my brownie belly. Ok, really it's a brownie/burger belly but let's leave something to the imagination. So when Dan (my main manfriend and possible ex manfriend if the running continues) suggested we go running on Valentines Day, I don't think I've ever moved so fast to eat a brownie in my life and then feign not being able to run because I'd just eaten. This horrifically backfired when I was pushed out of the house, being made to run 5 whole k (overdoing it now) and resulted in me feeling like I might regurgitate said brownie at any point. Not a great result. But really when it comes down to it you know who I blame? Myself, for telling Dan about my secret ambition to run 10k this year (for all you fitness fanatics this is probably easy as pie [mmm pie] but I tend to hit a wall after 7K, and want to sit on the floor and cry, preferably while being fed trifle).

Anyway after I'd recovered from my harsh introduction back into running and eaten more cheese than the amount of calories I'd burned off in the process. I had a brownie. And you know what, it was great. It was my Valentine's Day present to myself and, despite all the cheese, I earned that brownie! Aside from the run I got nada from you know who (aka Dandemort as he shall be known forevermore). I don't really buy into the commercial side of Valentines, sure I love flowers and chocolate (obviously, this is a post about brownies), but I love them all the time. And if I bloody want them I'll get them for myself (female empowerment forever!). But the one thing I do love and miss is Valentines Day breakfasts. When we were kids and when I'm visiting my mum, she goes all out. We're talking heart-shaped toast, eggs, maybe some pancakes, all the red berries you can think of and everything has a romantic name (eggs en cuddle for instance). My mum loves the holidays and holiday breakfasts are her speciality.

So I'm thinking I'm going to ditch the running, or at least take a break for the holidays, and stick with the Valentines Day breakfast tradition instead. Which depending on which calendar you follow could mean I'm holidaying ever weekend until 2017 (soz Dan, you'll have to find another running buddy). Maybe I could make a brownie for every holiday? Maybe I should concentrate on telling you what's in these one's first, well they're black forest so we're breaking out the cherries. I used tinned cherries because that's what I had in the cupboard, but if you want to use fresh be my guest, make them into a jam and swirl them through the mix (aka my blueberry cheesecake brownies with cherries). Made with entirely dark chocolate these are some very rich brownies perfect for your pre gym snack and full of cocoa antioxidants to keep you glowing (practically a health food). I like to eat these brownies alone, in a dark room, where no one can see me eat a pan to my self (they are that good) but you can share them if you like. They probably deserve to be seen, they are stunningly pink. Share or don't share, make a batch (or two) and eat them telling yourself (or accompanying brownie eaters) how great you all are. You deserve them.

Black Forest Brownies

(makes 14 large brownies)

250g caster sugar

150g salted butter

150g plain flour

3 eggs + 1 egg yolk

250g Dark Chocolate

100g icing sugar

300g cream cheese

A 425g tin of black cherries in syrup

1 tsp vanilla paste

Pink gel food colouring

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment (tray should be at least 2 m deep). On a low heat, melt the butter. While the butter is melting, whisk together the three eggs with the sieved caster sugar until light and combined.

Step 2. Break the dark chocolate into chunky chunks aka not too small but easily eaten pieces. When the butter is almost entirely melted, add 150g of the dark chocolate and stir with a metal spoon until it's one buttery, chocolatey smooth concoction, then take it off the heat and leave to cool slightly.

Step 3. If you have bought cherries with the stones removed you can skip stoning them and just cut them in half, but whatever you do don't forget to check the tin first! Last thing you want is broken teeth when biting into a brownie! Cut the cherries into half and set aside.

Step 4. To make the cheesecake topping, in a large bowl mix together the cream cheese, sieved icing sugar and the egg yolk (you can save the white for mini meringues, see recipe here) till combined, then add about 50ml of the syrup from the cherries and the vanilla paste and mix it all in. Then portion out the mixture into three separate bowls, if you're using food colouring, and leave one lot white, colour one light pink and the other really pink (we're talking major pink guys).

Step 5. Brownies Assemble! Now the chocolate butter has cooled slightly, give it a stir then slowly pour it in the sugary eggs whisking the eggs as you go. Once its all mixed in fold in the sieved flour and finally add the broken up chunks of dark chocolate and the cherries. Give the mix a stir, then pour it into the lined tray and evenly spread it around using your utensil of choice.

Step 7. Working quickly, put spoonfuls of the white cheesecake mix on top of the brownie at spaced intervals I like to go for the whole 5 or 6 rows of 3 dollops per tray, but it's your call. Then add spoonfuls of the pink and really pink cheesecake topping slightly overlapping the white, until you've got no more mix. Using a chopstick, swirl the cheesecake toppings together into the brownie being careful not to go too deep. Once you're happy with your swirling, bake the brownie in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Step 8. Brownies done and fudgy, leave them to cool, then pop them in the fridge for 30 minutes (if you can wait that long!), before taking it out and cutting them into squares. I prefer, the alternative method which is waiting for as little time as possible and then eating the pan all to myself, but hey I'm a greedy bitch.

Running rant over. Sorry about that. So after umming and ahhing over Berlin, Amsterdam or Copenhagen, we've booked a trip to (drum roll please) Edinburgh! That's right, it wasn't any of the places we discussed visiting, but hey that's how life works. My friend is coming over from Germany and we're going to have a bit of a uni get together in Scotland as a couple of our friends are living there now so thought it'd be nice to take some time to go see them. I'm really looking forward to it, we popped by briefly on our way to the Isle of Skye (read about out trip to this majestic isle here) to see Dan's Aunt and Uncle, and have been wanting to properly visit since. There's so many places I want to visit, by that I mean places I want to eat at. If anyone has any recommendations on places to eat or things to do in Edinburgh, please drop a comment below, would love to try some of your reccys out when we visit. Now if anyone needs me, me and my brownies will be in a dark room.

Getting my Swiss on at Truc Vert's Raclette Night

2016-02-01T14:54:00.005-08:00

I don't think it's a secret that I love cheese.

Felicity, They Called It The Diamond Blog

You know some people say they love cheese but then there are people that are in love with cheese. I fall firmly into the latter category. It's in my blood, with my Swiss heritage and all. And then this is when it gets weird. Despite being Swiss and loving cheese, I have never had Raclette. I've felt ashamed about it for ages, but my family are all firm fondue fans so it never gets a look in at home. My mum said she had a Raclette gizmo once, but if it ever existed it lies sadly forgotten in a house where dipping into cheese is central to our well-being. When I asked my Grandmere about Raclette once, she said she didn't like it so if I wanted to try it I'd have to go elsewhere, wagwan this is a fondue house gurl (ok she left off the gurl but you get the jist). So when the lovely people behind Truc Vert (aka Frankie, Russell and Louise) asked me if I'd like to come and try out their Raclette Wednesday Night (now also held on Saturdays!) I was intrigued. Then when they said Sophie, Gianni and a bottle of wine were coming I was more than willing to cast my fellow Swiss fam's feelings aside and open myself up to this cheesy event.

First off, I'd been invited to Truc Vert a while before, where me and a table of ladies and gents sampled their tasting menu (read about it here, it was absolutely delicious), so I already knew it was going to be good, but I couldn't contain my excitement about the spread that was placed before us. To give you an idea, all that food was there to feed four of us and there was tons. If it wasn't for my carefully concealed cheese stomach, I'm not sure we would have finished it.

It took me a while to get my head round the whole 'scrape' cheese onto potatoes/meat/pickles (FYI best pickled onions in the business) but once I'd got into that mindset there was no stopping me. No food was safe from a slice of melted cheese on top, even my wine got a little cheese hat in the scraping process, when I was being a bit too enthusiastic with the scraper. As wine and cheese is a killer combo it wasn't an issue. I mean I'm not going to say I'm going to swap our New Year Fondue for Raclette (my Grandma would kill me), but for £15 per person I'll be getting myself down to Truc Vert to get my cheesy fix. I mean £15 per person and all that food for 4 is crazy. Plus big up the cheese but also Truc Vert has some of the best bread. Their walnut bread is soooo good. Now I want bread and butter.

I need to stop blogging about food it just makes me so hungry. Especially when it comes to restaurants. At least when it's my own recipes, I generally have some of whatever it is to snack on during the post. Now what have I got, no Raclette and no walnut bread. This is the worst day ever. Bring on Wednesday so I can get cheese all over myself and three closest friends (not an innuendo). If this sounds up your street come and join me, we'll get scraping together, and I won't judge you if you decide it's too much effort and just dip your potatoes in the cheese. In fact maybe we should go together, my friends clearly think I'm sinning by dipping in Raclette (I'm looking at you Frankie). Get yourself to Mayfair and take advantage of the cold outside by stocking up on your cheese stores.

I'm craving cheese big time now and for once in my life we have none in the house. What's going on? It's almost like we're trying to save money by using up random cans of chickpeas we have in the house...oh wait yeah that's the glamorous life I'm living right now. Let's talk about the more exciting side of this current eating situation; we're saving to go to New York/Amsterdam/Copenhagen/Berlin. Yeah we still haven't decided where we're going but that's alright because we've decided to go Hawksmoor for breakfast. We can make decisions yeah, easy ones, involving my stomach and my friend Louie's going away breakfast (he's moving to New York...hence the saving). Also unrelated to food, I've just bought an Urban Decay palette and I am in love. Having been a MAC girl for a long time I had to stop using it because of skin problems a couple of years ago but having spoken to my friends and the internet beauty babes I've heard Urban Decay are pretty great if you have sensitive skin and so far so great! So yeah with Hawksmoor and Urban Decay it kind of explains why I'm living off chickpeas. Absolute idiot, and I want a leather jacket, need to reign it in. If anyone has any recommendations for skin care, chickpea recipes or just you know wants to tell me to get myself together, drop me a comment below. Hope you're having a fab week and are not eating chickpeas!

Thanks to Frankie for inviting me to dine at Truc Vert, and to Russell and Louise for a wonderful evening and for sponsoring the whole affair. All opinions are from yours truly!

Happy New Year! & A Wake Up Swim

2016-01-24T09:07:00.001-08:00

3...2...1...Happy New Year!

Ok so it's slightly belated but Happy New Year! We're now well into the start of the year, the holidays feel so long ago, but meeting up with friends the chat is still turning to how was your Christmas/New Year/Winter Solstice? Dan, my long-term man friend, and I are one click away from booking our next trip abroad...as soon as we decide where to go! There's so many places I want to visit, but we might be going to New York (sooooooo excited) to visit our friend Louie (featured topless later in the post) this year so we're going to have to make some harsh choices about where else we go away in 2016. Decisions, decisions. Currently we're toying with the idea of going to either Berlin, Amsterdam or Copenhagen (help me make a choice, which one has the best bakeries?! Jokes but no jokes). But seriously planning holidays is hard, the dream is to visit them all eventually but which one first?!

Anyway, New Year normally calls for a bunch of resolutions that we all know I'm not going to keep and then I'll feel the pressure building up towards September because I know I haven't done that thing that I said I'd do this year (this is normally always learning to drive, oh no! You know my secret, I'm in my twenties and I can't drive, the shame! Where's that woman with the bell from Game of Thrones when you need her!). Which is why I never make New Year's resolutions. If I want to eat healthier or learn to drive/knit/sing my name backwards I'll do it but if I pressurise myself into it, it's just going to go one way or more accurately won't happen at all. That's right, this girl does not respond to peer pressure, even if the peer is herself...wait, that makes no sense (on with the post!).

Moving on, I don't make New Year's resolutions but I do make plans. And this year my first plan of 2016 was to get some friends down to Broadstairs for New Year and do the New Year's Day swim off Viking Bay. I'm going to get it out of the way and say it was bloody freezing. Definitely worse coming out of the sea than being in it, however, it also has to be the best way to get rid of a hangover. Honestly, we all felt amazing afterwards, don't know if it was the adrenaline, cold or the copious amounts of Bailey's coffee drunk afterwards but it worked a treat, leaving us open to going to the pub afterwards...It's safe to safe we did not repeat the swim on the 2nd January, but it probably would have helped a couple of us.

Anyway before New Year's Eve, our friends Alex and Louie came down for a bit of sea air, plenty of pub trips and some wintery walks round the beaches of Broadstairs. My family are Swiss, so New Year's Eve is the big celebration in our calendar where we all sit round, eat fondue, drink and submit ourselves to various stupid forfeits when your dipping fodder of choice falls in the fondue pot. In order to make room for fondue we set off on a walk round the bays from Broadstairs to Ramsgate in search of shells and a birthday breakfast for my mum's boyfriend at the Royal Harbour Brasserie in Ramsgate, while my mum was working.

It was a gorgeous day but pretty misty walking round the bays, so there are not any beautiful sea views in this post I'm afraid, but there is a photo of a cat, some posy shots of me (and one of me getting soaked when the tide came in) and a shot of me, Alex, Dan, Louie and my mum in our swimsuits so get excited for those photos. This is Class A entertainment.

Of course Louie is not featured in many of these photos, because he is the slowest walker known to man and was having a John Mayer moment sitting on a rock watching the sea and composing a poem (this last bit may be a lie), similarly Dan and my mum's boyfriend were miles ahead so are also not featured (they don't appreciate shell collecting like me and Alex do). We also found a jellyfish so that took up a lot of our time trying to put it back into the water (we're animal activists first and foremost). So if you're reading this and wondering why there are zero photos of anyone else...that's why. On to some photos of Alex and a cat on a bench.

Playing the classic game of chicken with the sea, you're always dicing with the possibility that your heeled boots will get stuck in the sand and you will get soaked. Excluded from this set of photos is the moment I then face planted the sand as Alex continued snapping photos. We also both managed to drop our glasses into the sea at several points during the walk (the hazards of being a shell collector). I wouldn't say the reason why we're friends is because we're both super clumsy but it's definitely bought us closer together. That and showering together after swimming in the sea.

After several more photos and nagging Louie to get off the rock. We arrived in Ramsgate and headed down the harbour arm to the restaurant on the pier, The Royal Harbour Brasserie. I love this restaurant, we've been going there since we came over to the UK and it's changed hands a few times but the people that have got it now have nailed it. Inside it's all quirky with pews from churches as benches and plush red and leather seats, paper mache fish hanging from the ceiling (its cool not tacky) and lots of exposed wood. On a non-misty day you can see right out to sea and also have a great view of the town and how it's built up into the cliff. The food is simple British plates with a focus on seafood, and for me the best time to go is for breakfast.

Absolutely starving we ordered a round of hot chocolates (complete with enough marshmallows to put you in a sugar coma for life) and of course a couple of beers (it was the holidays, I don't just drink everyday...), some Kentish English breakfasts, a Swedish hash with chorizo, bacon, sausage and onions, and I went for the duck egg with brown shrimps in shrimpy butter on toast. We've got so many great suppliers in Kent, there are some amazing butchers and growers so we're pretty spoilt eating out. I always go for the duck egg with brown shrimp. It is soooooo good and something you don't get everywhere else. I'm having a craving for that shrimp butter right now. This is torture. Just look at that yolk!

After drinking and eating something close to our fill (there's always room for cheese). We picked up some cheese and bits for fondue at the local deli, and headed back to Broadstairs via the coolest place ever; The Petticoat Lane Emporium.

The Petticoat Lane Emporium has to be on your list of things to do if you're visiting Thanet, there's so many great things going on down there but if you're looking for some vintage furnishings/clothes on the cheap head there. It's full of different corner stands with all sorts of things from the bizarre (stuffed mini deer anyone?) to the wonderful (all of the enamel kitchenware). It's an instagrammers dream and if you like rummaging round London markets you should put this place down on your holiday list. There's also a cafe upstairs you know if you want some cake, which of course everyone does. Hardly anyone was around so we roamed the stalls looking for gems, there was some gorgeous bits of 70s furniture which I fell in love with then had to be torn away from (it would never fit in our current flat). Definitely check it out if you're into your vintage wear/ware. Margate's Old Town also has some great shops to look around but this place felt a lot more affordable. Alex bought a leather doctor's bag for £15. While I bought one of several enamel baking trays I wanted.

After walking round the emporium it was back to ours for cheese, followed by Jurassic Park, followed by fondue, followed by watching the fireworks from the harbour in Broadstairs with champers as my mum, in place of the traditional Swiss cowbells, rang in the New Year with a pair of saucepan lids....port, more cheese and finally bed came while we awaited the inevitable.

The New Years Day Swim.

Here are my tips to surviving the New Years Day Swim:

1) Make sure you go with people that have stronger wills than you, so when you threaten to pull out they stop you.

2) Wrap the biggest towel you have round a hot water bottle and a flask of Bailey's Coffee (this saves lives).

3) Wear flipflops.

4) Turn on the heating in your house before you leave.

5) Eat plenty of cheese before hand, you will need these calories. Also make sure there is cheese ready for afterwards. Preferably croissants and ham as well. Better yet, if anyone's not swimming get them to make you breakfast on your return.

6) Call dibs on the shower before you go in the sea.

If you follow these golden rules you'll live a long and healthy life, and have a successful New Year's Swim. Now for the photos you've all been waiting for. Beware of our assorted wobbly bits/cheese stores. Do it once and be the legend that swam in the sea on New Year's Day. The swim in Broadstairs is organised by the Neptune pub for charity so it's all for a good cause!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a cracking holiday. I'm so excited for this year. Can't wait to get another holiday booked in the diary, we're leaning towards Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but if anyone has any recommendations drop me a comment below. Do you have any funny New Year stories/traditions? We're thinking of making the New Year's Swim a yearly thing, will have to persuade Louie to fly back from New York although maybe we can do it there in the Hudson River...maybe not if it's anything like the Thames! I've never been to America so am excited to visit soon, salivating about all the pizza and bbq joints. Bring on the meat! Also donuts...did you know the guy that made the original cronut place is opening a bakery here in London this year! I literally cannot contain myself. I love me a cronut. It's a food trend I am not sad about (let's be honest there's not many that I would be sad about...maybe a tofu trend). Anyway enough chat about cronuts, I'm going to eat one, or something, it's probably going to be cheese. Got to keep those reserves up...plus I am Swiss.

Chocolate & Cranberry Alternative Christmas Cake with Lindt

2015-12-21T15:45:00.001-08:00

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer

Had a very shiny nose

And if you ever saw it

You would even say it glows

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

I'm not going to lie, after my birthday last weekend I feel like I have overindulged and been absolutely spoilt rotten already, I'm not sure I'm ready for Christmas (who am I kidding?!). Last Saturday, my friends and I went for brunch at Marcus Wareing's restaurant Tredwells (post to follow but in summary amazing cocktails, great company and some great food albeit in quite small tasting portions!), before chilling out at the Southbank Christmas market and laughing the day away with a fair few glasses of prosecco/hot rum/mulled wine in hand. It was exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday, just having a relaxed care free today with my closest friends...and Han Solo. Oh my God, have you seen it? Are you a huge fan? I love all of the old 70s Star Wars films, me and my brother were obsessed with it growing up, and Princess Leia was my ultimate role model. Yeah, she's a princess who occasionally needs rescuing, but she also does the rescuing, leads the rebellion, fights on the front line and sets herself free (after strangling Jabba the Hut). In my eyes, that's a perfect role model (maybe minus the strangling but desperate times call for desperate measures).

Anyway, instead of a birthday cake this year, because we were out eating lots of goodies all day Saturday at the Christmas market, I decided to make a cake for our Friendmas on the Sunday, where me and my friends exchanged presents, ate 'Christmas' dinner together (basically lots of brie) and went to my friend's carol service. Because the lovely Mai at Lindt had sent me a box of Christmas chocolates, I knew it has to be a chocolate cake, plus you know it was my birthday weekend and I love chocolate cake. One of my favourite cakes is black forest gateau, but obviously cherries aren't in season right now, so I decided to make a cranberry butter icing to adorn my cake and up the festive factor. In the box from Lindt I also had a couple of reindeer which I thought would be perfect cake toppers, they're good on their own but again birthday gal's cake means birthday gal's rules and that means covering them in glitter and lots of it.

My boyfriend, Dan, has been getting a bit frustrated with the amount of glitter in our lives, since I wrapped all our presents (need gift wrap inspiration? See the post here). He's pretty much had glitter living in his beard for a couple of weeks now, which has only worsened following the introduction of boxes full of chocolate with glitter in from Lindt and you know glitter boots (sayyyy whaaat, amazing birthday present to myself seen here! I adore them). But Christmas is a time for a bit of sparkle so I flaunted his no more glitter rule and went full steam ahead painting my Lindt reindeer with gold glitter dust, because I'm a rebel with a festive cause. And that festive cause is Friendmas!

Be prepared for me to drag out my birthday for a while, you know the fact I'm older, wiset and generally have come into my face, as I have yet to see my family and I know I've got a couple of presents coming that way. Which I'm sure I will get overly excited about and post on twitter. This year I was so happy that so many of my friends showed up for brunch, they all mean the world to me and I'm so lucky to have such great friends from all the stages of my life (who let this sap in? I won't let it happen again. Blame it on the mulled wine). They are true ladies and gents, and I've been absolutely spoilt by them. I mean, I don't want to brag (I so do) but they're all pretty awesome and I got some pretty amazing gifts too (I'm basically setting up my own branch of Anthropologie in my house).

In short of becoming an emotional wreck, this cake was my thank-you-to-my-girlfriends-for-being-great contribution to Friendmas dinner, along with a couple of wheels of brie. It pretty much has everything we love, chocolate, kitschy animals, glitter and you know as feminists we all love pink. It was absolutely delicious, very chocolatey but the icing is quite tart which lifts the cake. Its a great alternative to Christmas cake if you're not a fan (which I can honestly say I'm not). My first baking memory, was making a fruit cake for Christmas at my Dad's and taking it out of the oven with my bare hands, which has kinda put me off making it again. And also, why is it always dry? I mean I love Christmas pudding, and it's pretty much the same ingredients but that is fabulous compared to this weird dry cake. I also more recently tried to make one using a Delia Smith recipe, because everyone says if you can't make it try Delia's recipe. Delia's recipe just did not work for me. I even bought her kit, something I never do is buy cake kits because half the fun is in the making, and that was just a disaster.

So if like me, you can't bake/won't bake/hate Christmas Cake, give this a go instead. It is sweet and fruity with a good chocolate hit, and everyone loves Rudolph. I mean if he's good enough to be Santa's favourite he's definitely mine. Give it a go!

Chocolate & Cranberry Cake

(serves 8-10)

For the cake

150g butter

150g caster sugar

170g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

3 eggs

200g milk chocolate (I used Lindt Excellence Extra Creamy)

2 1/2 tbsps nutella

For the cranberry icing

150g cranberries

1 1/2 tbsps water

1 tsp vanilla paste

3 tbsps caster sugar

70g butter

160g icing sugar

Freeze dried raspberry pieces

Gold glitter dust

A couple of Lindt reindeers if wanted

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a cake tin with baking paper.

Step 2. To make the cake, mix together the eggs and 150g caster sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Melt the butter, nutella and chocolate, I just do mine low and slow in a saucepan but use whatever method you want. Once melted, pour the chocolatey butter into the bowl and stir till combined, then fold in the flour and baking powder. Pour the cake mix into the lined tin and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Step 3. While the cake is baking, make the cranberry jam. In a saucepan, cook the cranberries, 3 tbsps caster sugar and water on a medium heat, stirring regularly for 10-15 minutes till the berries have burst and it's starting to come together as a jam. For this icing, I like to sieve the jam and get rid of the berry skins and just having the colour and flavour.

Step 4. Cream the butter and icing sugar together, then add the vanilla paste and sieved cranberry jam and stir.

Step 5. Once the cake is ready and a skewer comes out clean. Take it out the tin and leave it to cool.While the cake is cooling, if you're a glitter fanatic like me, unwrap your Lindt chocolate reindeer and paint it with your gold glitter dust. To make Rudolph place a dollop of cranberry icing on the reindeer's nose and press a couple of freeze-dried raspberry pieces, and voila instant Rudolph.

Step 6. Once the cake is cool, turn it upside down and ice it with your cranberry icing, you can sprinkle some more freeze-dried raspberries round the edge of the cake and place the reindeer in the centre, or wherever (go off-piste if you want).

Step 7. Cake done, bit Rudolph's head of and relish in Christmas. Sharing cake optional.

I am so full from this weekend. There's many treats in my office at the moment and I just can't face them. Part of it is 100% my fault, overindulging on my birthday weekend, eating way too much chocolate, I've got enough to keep me going till Easter. Although I'm taking a bit of a chill this week and eating a bit healthier, its all the calm before the storm when Christmas hits and I lose all restraint. Have you got all your Christmas recipes down? If so, drop me a comment below I'd love to see them and get a bit of inspiration for Christmas Day at our house. Present wise, I've finally got everyone a present, including my youngest brother, so I'm feeling pretty great myself (so arrogant!). If anyone is looking for last minute gift ideas for me, anything from Anthropologie to add to my store works. Honestly I was so spoilt for my birthday, highlights include the cutest ceramic rolling pin you've ever seen, silver leaf cranberry jelly from Fortnum and Mason, so many candles and a pretty swanky new camera strap. Plus these boots, from Dan, my ultimate favourite man and best present buyer ever. Being mid-twenties isn't all bad...

Thanks to Mai who works for Lindt and the chocolate gurus themselves (Lindt, that's you!) for sending me a box of the finest Christmassy chocolate around and for helping me get into the festive spirit. All opinions are from yours truly!

A Very Merry Mulled Wine Apple & Cranberry Strudel

2015-12-17T00:57:00.003-08:00

Ok top 5 favourite desserts of all time, go! It's hard but mine have to be chocolate brownies (see here and here), cheesecake, banoffee pie, trifle and apple strudel. Phew, it's tough, but there it is, my top 5 desserts. Now I've made most of these, some with varying degrees of success (aka not baked cheesecake: liquid cheesecake everywhere), but I'd never made a strudel up until a couple of weeks ago.

In truth, I've always seen it as that fiddly dessert that's just going to be an absolute flop at home and is much easier to buy from the frozen aisle in the supermarket. I always try to avoid processed foods but I canny resist frozen strudel and, in the spirit of honesty, fries. That was till I made it, I can honestly say this is the best strudel I've ever eaten and yeah it is a little fiddly but what it takes in effort it makes up for in pure buttery delicious. My boyfriend's brother seemed to think so too and seems to have told everyone how good it was, as I got a text from his Dad the next day asking me if I could make it for him when I see them over Christmas.

I'll be honest, putting mulled wine in recipes has become a bit of an obsession of mine. We're talking strudel, mince pies, sausage rolls (I'm lying about the sausage rolls). I just always seem to have some lying about, in a glass, with a slice of orange, normally in my hand. I don't know how it gets there, but the next thing I know it's in whatever I'm making. This idea actually came from making mulled wine pears, which then turned into mulled wine pear frangipane (Mmmm almonds). Admittedly my frangipane was no way near as good as Dan's mums and that's why this recipe is for apple strudel (#frangipanefail, definitely a hashtag that'll catch on).

The mulled wine should impart a lot of spiciness into the strudel which is why I've only added a small amount of cinnamon (I'm a cinnamon fiend). Use your favourite mulled wine recipe or use mine (see here) which has every spice under the sun in, it's your call. If you don't like raisins what's wrong with you? Kidding, feel free to leave them out and up the amount of cranberries for extra Christmas flair.

When I first made this recipe for some friends, I actually made a huge one in the shape of a Christmas wreath which looked amazing and would make a great alternative Christmas dessert. Don't feel like you're confined to the oblong parcel, although any shaping will treble the difficulty rating. As I've said this dessert is a little fiddly as it stands and it takes a gentle hand not to tear the filo pastry into shreds when brushing it with butter, but don't lost heart I am a prime example of a clumsy, unsteady handed being and it turned out alright!

Give it a go but heed my warning, this buttery pastry it dangerously addictive, once you start eating the crispy bits on top you'll soon be left with just the outer shell of a strudel. Which is totally fine if you're a greedy guts like me, but probably less impressive if you're serving it at a dinner party. Unless it's a dinner party of one. Then you should forget everything I've just said and move straight on to the recipe.

Mulled Wine Apple & Cranberry Strudel

(serves 6-8)

700g apples

5 sheets filo pastry

150ml mulled wine (my recipe is here)

125g soft brown sugar

180g butter

75g raisins

75g cranberries

1 tsp cinnamon

1 orange, juice and zest

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking tray big enough to lay out one sheet of filo pastry on top and set aside. Place the cranberries and raisins in a bowl of the fresh orange juice and leave to soak.

Step 2. Peel, core and chop the apples into bite-sized pieces. Pour the mulled wine, sugar and 80g butter into a large saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter is melted, then add the apples and cook for 10 minutes until they've softened but still hold their shape.

Step 3. Once the apples are cooked, drain them making sure to retain the liquid, and set the apples aside to cool. Then return the mulled wine back to the pan and on a high heat reduce till it's a thick syrup and can coat the back of a spoon and there's about 60ml left. Once cooled set the syrup aside.

Step 4. While the apples are cooling. Melt 100g butter in a clean saucepan on a high heat. Brush the lined baking tray with a little melted butter and place 1 sheet of filo pastry on top, then using a brush paint the sheet liberally with the melted butter, then place a second sheet on top. Repeat the process for four sheets brushing with melted butter each time.

Step 5. Strain the raisins and cranberries from the orange juice and add them to the cooked apples along with the cinnamon, orange zest and the mulled wine syrup, then mix it all together till all the apples are thoroughly coated in the syrup.

Step 6. Spoon the apple mixture into the middle of the pastry and fold the pastry into a parcel. Each time you fold in an edge brush the top with melted butter as this will help the other edges stick to it. Once all folded up, turn it upside down so the seam is on the bottom of the tray, scrunch up the last sheet of filo and place it on top of the strudel for decoration and brush the whole thing with melted butter. Bake the strudel in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown in colour.

Step 7. Once the strudels done, you can either serve it hot or cold. Personally I like mine hot with ice cream, nothing fancy just good old vanilla. Be warned buttery pastry may send some bakers into a pastry eating spiral. Eat responsibly.

I may or may not, have made extra mulled wine syrup and drank it with prosecco. I would 100% recommend you do this as well. If anyone has a favourite Christmas tipple recipe (the easier he better) leave me a link below so I can get my cocktail on for Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is a week away, I mean how did that happen? One minute I was loving life at Dinerama's Summer affair the next thing I know it's my birthday this weekend and I'm posting Christmas recipes galore. Speaking of which Christmas Sausage Rolls are happening next week. Be here or be a vegetarian (or vegan). They're good I promise, they've got cranberries in! Drop me all your Christmas recipe links below so I can put on a few extra pounds over Christmas...and comfort eat after getting older. Boo you time, boo you! Have a great week all.

That's a Wrap! With a Little Help From Lindt

2015-12-15T14:21:00.004-08:00

It's Christmaaaaaaassssssssssss!

Merry Christmas Everybody, Slade

I don't want to alarm anyone but there are only 10 sleeps till Christmas. Everyone to your Christmas panic stations! Speaking of panic, I need some help. Particularly from anyone that has also had to buy presents for one of my brothers, I'd really appreciate that because when I ask my brothers what they want for Christmas the answer is always a pony (cute if you're 10 but they're fully grown men).

Aside from buying my bros' presents, I've got it all sorted. Seriously I'm never normally this organised, I'm a leave it till the last possible second, then do it slightly late kind of lady. But I've had so much going on this December, I've had to plan ahead (who knew doing things early meant less stress?). Last Saturday my plans fell through which in a way was a bit of a blessing because it meant I actually got to sit down watch lots of Christmas movies (why is Love Actually and the Holiday not on Netflix/Amazon Prime/Sky Movies?!), make some mince pies and do some much needed Christmas wrapping.

To make my day in extra Christmassy, the lovely Mai at Lindt sent me a big box full of the best chocolatey goodies we're talking bears, santas, bears, some cheeky elves, bears, reindeer and did I mention a heck load of bears. Honestly when I got the box I was like what am I going to do with all these bears, after eating half of them, I had an epiphany. Use the bears (and a couple of cheeky santas) as my present accessories, because it's all well and good giving a normal wrapped present, but at Christmas you kinda need to push the boat out and put an accessory on it. That means bows, candy canes, poster paint, glitter (my all important Christmas accessory, look at my new boots!!!) and chocolate bears (who doesn't love chocolate? In fact don't tell me, I don't want to know). Don't hold back, free flow your accessorising, hell put some prajazzles on there (aka present vajazzles).

First of all how cute is that panda! It's a gift for my 6-month-old (when did that happen!!) niece, I can't wait to give it to her. She's getting to that age when she is starting to recognise people, so we've been making an effort to go see her, and her mum and dad, as often as possible. I can't wait to see her face when she see's the bear, the candy cane is for mum.

I like to use simple plain wrapping paper and bags when wrapping gifts so I can go wild in decorating them. With silver paint I'll draw stripes and dots, or write a message on the present then cover it in glitter because everyone loves glitter (except Dan...sometimes I wonder why we're together). I decided to forgo tags this year and just write on the gifts in silver pen (because presents have themes ok!). And finish them with red and maroon ribbon, tying a little treat from Lindt or a candy cane up in a bow. Although a traditionalist in colours, I'm a rebel at heart so of course I have to mix up the ribbons, tie the present in red ribbon finish with a maroon bow then dust it all in glitter. While you're at it, go crazy and dip the whole present in glitter, then the bears...ok maybe not the bears (refrain yourselves if you can readers).

Just looking at these photos are making me super excited for Christmas. At the weekend, we went out for my friend Louie's birthday (seen here, here and here looking cracking) for dinner and to see The Muppet Christmas Carol sing along at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. Oh My God, the sing along was so much fun! I've only said a bazillion times on here that The Muppet Christmas Carol is my fave Christmas movie of all time, and this just set the mood. If you're feeling like a bit of a scrooge and need to get some Christmas spirit, go, grab a mulled wine from the bar, enjoy Santa's stand up antics before the film starts and belt out your best Muppet voice singing along non stop. This is not your normal cinema visit, this is a loud but proud sing along where you can show your love for Gonzo unashamedly. Go dressed up with your friends and get your song on, and thank me for the recommendation later.

This weekend is only going to be even more festive, seeing our niece on the Friday at her mum's birthday party, then getting my birthday brunch on Saturday (I'm turning old!!!!!!) with some Christmas marketing, plenty of mulled wine and Star Wars viewing later in the day, and Friendmas Dinner and Christmas carols by candlelight at my friend's Church on Sunday. Bring on the weekend!! For now I'm going to have to make do with lounging underneath our Christmas tree, lighting pine scented candles and eating the remaining Lindt bears...

I honestly think adding something sweet to your gift wrapping is a great way to get yourself on to everyone's good books in the New Year. You know a present is great, but a present with something a little extra special and chocolatey is even better. And why stop at the outside, I've actually filled a couple of presents with Lindt bears just to guarantee my friends know I care...is this chocolate black mail?

Lindt also generously sent me a couple of bigger Lindt goods, which have become instant ready wrapped presents for my cousins. The Santas have unfortunately been eaten. But I'm saving the reindeer to be my Christmas cake topper. I'm thinking about spraying it gold...too extravagant? Now I just have to find homes for the other million bears Lindt sent me (not that I'm not grateful!), any takers?

Maybe my brother would like a Lindt bear for Christmas?

So are you ready for Christmas? I met up with Sophie from Sophie Loves Food (check out her chocolate gingerbread forest topped with some adorable Lindt elves) yesterday (and Persephone and Mike) for burgers and engagement chat (Persephone got engaged and has the prettiest ruby ring in the world) yesterday and she's not found her Christmas spirit yet. Whereas I probably have a little too much or at least for my office anyway. What are your plans for the last weekend before Christmas? I'm so excited for my birthday, I mean I'm still pretending I'm 21 again but you know if I buy myself enough pairs of shoes it's fine I can get another year older. I've probably given the game up about whose fdbloggers secret santa I am by posting this, but I thought everyone should accessorise their Christmas pressies this year/I should get more chocolate.

Thanks to Mai who works for Lindt and the chocolate gurus themselves (Lindt, that's you!) for sending me a box of the finest dark chocolate around and for helping me get into the festive spirit. All opinions are from yours truly!

Christmas Time, Mistletoe & Mulled Wine Recipe

2015-12-09T06:33:00.005-08:00

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine

Children singing Christian rhyme

With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree

A time to rejoice in the good that we see

Mistletoe and Wine, Cliff Richard

Got to love a bit of Cliff's Christmas Song. It's Christmas! Almost, sort of, not really. I mean it's actually my birthday beforehand but you know when you turn 21 for the umpteenth time it's not as exciting as the first time. Anyway I'm excited for Christmas it is providing a welcome escape from the fact that I will officially no longer be in my early twenties next week. Ohhhhhhhh I hate getting older, I mean I'm excited for brunch with all my friends (including you dear reader) but Lord no I don't like it. The only way I'm going to get by is with copious amounts of bucks fizz and mulled wine, maybe chuck in some gin as well just for good measure.

Speaking of mulled wine, I've got this super easy, guaranteed idiot proof recipe for mulled vino to share with you. I can't guarantee it's easier than opening a bottle of mulled wine and heating it up in the microwave (genuinely you can buy it premulled and it's not always terrible) or sticking a teabag of spice in it, but it definitely is (in my humble opinion) more delicious.

Even red wine haters like mulled wine. It's basically hot sangria, sort of, not really, but it is. I've already started on the mulled wine and, I'm not going to lie, I don't see myself stopping drinking it any time soon. In fact, I'm going to grab myself a mug full tonight. Speaking of mugs aren't these glass ones cute? I'm in love plus, I'll let you into a little secret, they cost me £1.50. This is the main reason why I'm extra in love with them, I love a homeware bargain. I saw some gorgeous mugs at Zara Home (finding out Zara did homeware was a dream come true!). But I thought these budget mugs from my local supermarket no less were significantly cheaper and also don't have to go away when the Christmas season finishes. My boyfriend Dan is very particular about when Christmas stuff has to go away, I on the other hand I'd prefer to leave it up till Valentines Day rolls around but hey I don't take down my birthday cards till then anyway! For someone who hates getting older I sure like to drag my birthday out.

Anyway less rambling more recipe sharing so we can all get Christmassy. Speaking of Christmas, if you really want to get into the Christmas Spirit you can always add a shot of sloe gin or sherry into the glass of mulled wine at the end, when you need a bit of extra cheer.

Mulled Wine Recipe

(serves 2)

Half a bottle of red wine

4 heaped tbsps soft brown sugar

Orange peel (about a quarter of an oranges worth)

1 cinnamon stick

5 allspice berries

5 cloves

1 bayleaf

5 gratings of nutmeg

2 orange slices

Step 1. Put the wine, spices, sugar and orange peel into a saucepan and heat on a low heat for 15 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Strain the wine through a sieve to remove the spices and serve with a slice of orange.

Step 2. Guzzle away!

If you can't tell I'm super excited for Christmas. I've been singing Christmas songs non-stop and watching all the movies. We're actually going to see The Muppets Christmas Carol sing along version at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square this weekend for my friend's birthday (all the best people are born in December), which is only my all time number one Christmas film! Dan is panicking a little because he doesn't know any of the words, so he's said we're going to have to have a sing along run through at home this week so he isn't the only one not singing in the cinema. Such a muppet (...see what I did there). Do you have a favourite Christmas film? I'm still yet to see Home Alone 2, so my plan tonight is to right that wrong. Also I need some help! So I've booked a fancy brunch for my birthday the weekend after next and everyone is asking me what we're doing afterwards...I kinda thought everyone would be busy so close to Christmas so I'm super happy they want to do something but now I've got to find something to do. Any suggestions?

The Lake District, Lambs a Leaping Part II

2015-11-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils

Daffodils, William Wordsworth

I know what you're thinking, 'when was Part I?'. That's a really great question, it was roughly 3 months ago (see here), yep, I've been slack on uploading the second part of our wet walks in the Lake District. A fact that has not been forgotten...least of all by my mum. Every other conversation I have with her ends in 'when are you going to upload our holiday photos?'. The problem is, I take too many. This is probably obvious from any post I've ever posted. As Dan, my main man, has now ruled, I am no longer allowed to take any photos of sheep as I have just shy of a gazillion (not a real word) shots of them. As well as taking multiple photos of the same thing for the fun of it, I'm also doing it because I've been trying to improve my manual photography this year since Dan lovingly bought me a DSLR last Christmas (I think he feels like this is the biggest mistake he's ever made, at least I'm using this gift...unlike the mittens and egg timer of 2012). That's mean, the mittens and egg timer were part of a larger array of gifts who's first letter of each present made an anagram for Merry Christmas Felicity (yeah that's right I got twenty two gifts...who's sounding spoilt now? Still me). Spoilt-ness (also not a real word) aside, I've finally finished editing all of the sheep photos out of our Lake District snaps, I may have left one or two (or perhaps 10) still in but look at the little lamb's face, he was practically begging me too. (SPOILER ALERT FOR MY MUM) So this year for Christmas, along with an actual real gift, I'm giving my mum a copy of our holiday photos (but no you still can't see the ones from Iceland, it's going to take me years to narrow down which Icelandic horse photos to keep).

Anyway, I still have more photos to share with you, which may or may not include 1000 duck photos and a picture of dogs (plural) on a boat, but let's save them for Part III. I like to build the suspense up in preparation for sharing these shots with you. These photos are from a day out we had at Sizergh Castle, a National Trust estate, near Kendal, the biggest town in the Lake District. As I've said before the Lake District has lakes for a reason and that reason is because it rains. All of the time (slightly melodramatic but not much). This day was a particularly horrid in the morning so we decided to up and wander round the castle first. One of the really interesting things about Sizergh Castle is the Strickland family still live there, I think this is the only National Trust property I've been to where this is the case. It actually makes it more interesting biggest amongst all the old historic artefacts there are more modern touches and for those nosey readers (aka mum) plenty of photos of the modern day clan that lives there.

I should say before you grab your camera and head to your nearest National Trust property (of which there are tons in the UK, including some great ones in London), generally photography is not allowed and this is one of the only properties I've visited where you can take photos inside. Which is great because there are so many beautiful things I wanted to show you! The whole estate is very extravagant with stained glass, beautiful silk wallpaper and a large amount of gorgeous wooden panelling. One room's panelling (the Inlaid Chamber) was actually sold off to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in the late 1800s by the Strickland in charge at the time to fund his gambling habit (cheeky). Clearly this wasn't highly thought off by the rest of the family (as all the tour volunteers we spoke to hated the man), so it was campaigned to be bought back to the Inlaid Chamber for years till it was finally restored in 1999. Weirdly, although the panelling has been restored it is on a long-term loan basis so the V&A still have the rights to this room and as such it is the only room in the whole Castle where you can't take any photos (boooooooooo!).

Walking round the house, I was particularly smitten with all the books, some of which had particularly beautiful spines and covers. I think one of the saddest things about houses like this is that the books just sit on shelves not being read. At least at Sizergh Castle the family are still there to read them but it makes me really sad (get your tissues at the ready...) when I think about all the books that must have been destroyed having not been read for years when Clandon House burnt down, and the huge collection of mounted butterflies (which we weren't even supposed to look at but did anyway and now never can again!). My mum's boyfriend recently gifted me a beautiful illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland Through The Looking Glass, whose engraved images I have been poring over. It's absolutely gorgeous and couldn't get sold at Auction and was going to be destroyed by the owners so he saved it, and I'm so grateful he did.

My mum's boyfriend is always great to walk round houses/galleries/museums with as he's an antique evaluator by day (rock music enthusiast and cheese lover by night; that's why he loves my mum), so you can always get some facts from him, he knows what's real and what's imitation (I would have no clue) and tends to know a bit of the darker history behind everything. Also if we see a collection of anything (I really mean this) he can always tell me what the most and least expensive item is, and usually who it's made by. Note to readers; usually the most expensive is the ugliest (why is that? Is it the whole too much money not enough sense thing?).

While we were walking round the house the rain stopped, so we decided to make the most of it and have a picnic in the grounds, being Swiss French, a picnic to my family basically means eating cheese, grapes and bread outside where the cheese may or may not be melted. With a couple of cups of tea and my very fetching blue anorak we decided to take a turn (how very British of us) round the gardens.

Outside the front of Sizergh castle are some fields full of sheep with a walking track that leads off into the hills. We made a short stab at walking round this way but it was so wet after a few of us almost losing shoes in the mud (something I'm loathed to relive after I lost my wellie in a bog this year) we stuck to the more formal gardens out the back. The most interesting of which being the zen garden. Japanese inspired, the colours are all very Autumnal (even in Spring/Summer when we visited!) where lots of mini trees styled as bonsai' take root among rocky pools. It's built up as lots of layered paths so it's almost slightly maze like which is entertaining trying to get to each other. Exiting into the kitchen garden which was looking like it had a bit of a poor harvest lined up, I made a friend. His named was Colin (it wasn't I made it up) and he wanted a hug so it was only polite to sit down and play with him for 5 minutes (Dan thinks it was more like 20, but honestly Colin was so friendly I didn't want to leave). Eventually Dan separated us (he was just jealous) and we wandered through the woods where we met some very camera shy chickens and the cutest doe eyed lamb (can you tell I'm an animal lover? Is it creeping you out? Will you keep reading? So many questions).

p.s Colin's the cat.

By now my taking photos of sheep had become a bit of a family in joke (not a very funny one in my opinion) but of course my mum and Dan thought it was hilarious (they're the funniest people they know), and kept scaring the sheep by asking them to pose. I'm just thankful my brothers weren't there because with all of them chiming in it would have been unbearable and who knows what they would have done.

It's rare we get to spend so much time together with my parents as we live away from home so I really appreciate days like these. Growing up, after we came over from the Falkland Islands and it was just me, my mum and my brother we didn't have a huge amount of money so we never really went away. In truth, it wasn't until I met Dan that I actually went on a plane again some 10 years later. Which makes me so thankful (and also a little bit afraid of flying. Ok a lot) that I can afford to go away and see the world now, even if it is just a little bit of the Lake District! I'll always be grateful to my mum for putting me and my brother first, and making sure we had the best chances she could give us even though we had a difficult time, which is why I like to be able to take my mum and her boyfriend out and spoil them (like the time we took them to eat the best food we've had this year at Pachamama, read about it here), or be able to go away on holiday together. Am I being too soppy? Well I'm just going to go ahead and say I love my mum. There I've said it, she'll probably print screen this paragraph and get it framed but I don't care! Stop me if you can readers I'm a mummy's girl!

Moving on from my emotional declaration. Mum and I went down to the edge of the lake/pond (what is it? I'm not sure maybe it's a combo, a pake if you will) in search of the elusive wild garlic. We may have naughtily picked a couple of leaves to add to our dinner that night but let's keep that between you, me and mum. Although the house itself has it's own beauty, it was the grounds I fell for at Sizergh Castle and the amount of wildlife living amongst them. We're talking swans, ducks, geese, yellow wagtails, farmed sheep and chickens, and even a hive of bees. I'm a big lover of Jane Austen and a secret romantic at heart, this is exactly the kind of place I can imagine her characters walking round, possibly hiding with a beau in one of nature's alcoves (cheeky devs).

As beautiful as Sizergh Castle was in the Spring, I'd love to see it in the Winter when it's covered in a thick blanket of snow and the pond freezes over. In the UK, particularly in the South, we don't really get that many snowy days, a complete opposite to the Winter in the Falklands where we once had enough snow to build an igloo and sledging was a daily occurrence. Aside from the times me and my brother spent going down our stairs on the sledge in the UK (don't try this at home kids), I have been sledging in the snow here once, which was probably the only time we got enough snow to sleigh down! You can imagine sleighing down the hills in the Lake District would be hilarious, I mean potentially dangerous and life-threatening (Pah! You safety salamander you) but we'll let Dan go first...

Poor Dan I hear you say? Did you know he's rationing the amount of time I can spend lighting my new pine scented candles? Not feeling so sorry for him now are you.

Looking back at these photos although I'm super excited for Winter and most importantly Christmas (it's only 24 sleeps away!!!!), and all the fun this season brings. I'm looking forward to Spring, the new shoots, darling buds of May and, dare I say, lambing season (start prepping your camera now). Unfortunately because of the wet weather this year we didn't get to camp out in the Lake District like we planned, but that just gives us another excuse to make a second trip in 2016, if we do I'll definitely make sure to stop by Sizergh Castle again if only to do the muddy walk we failed at last time (with appropriate footwear on of course) and snap a lamb photo or two of course!

Look at those beauties, aren't they a smiley bunch. A lot of people say I don't look like my mum or brother at all, but I think you can definitely see some resemblance to my mum in these photos, what do you reckon? Editing these shots have made me so excited to see my family again over Christmas, I can't wait to make some mulled cider with my mammy and eat (you guessed it) lots of cheese. Do you have any Christmas plans sorted? We put our tree up at the weekend, it was quite nice carrying it home through town, a lot of children stopped and stared, tugging at their parents sleeves 'they've got a Christmas tree!'. That and taking my, now, 6-month-old niece to see all the Christmas lights at the Garden Centre (any excuse to go and buy succulents) and her face light up has really got me in the Christmas spirit. Oh the bottle of prosecco, mulled cider and Christmas baking at Sophie's last weekend might have helped, or the fabulous Thanksgiving dinner, complete with a Christmassy cocktail, Lisa invited me to at Dirty Bones last Friday (read all about her review here)! What's making you feel Christmassy?

Let's Dance! Sushi Samba, Heron Tower, London

2015-11-26T01:55:00.003-08:00

Let's dance, put on your red shoes and eat sushi...

Let's Dance, David Bowie...sort of

You look confused. I understand you think it's hypocritical that I write about my love for street food and independent restaurants, and hatred for chains but then here I am writing about Sushi Samba, one of the biggest, luxurious 'chains' (a wee chain of five) of restaurants around. The truth is I'm a food snob. That's it I've said it, I feel so much better with that off my chest. I know you would never know this to be true (who am I kidding you all knew!) but it is, I am a food snob and proud! This doesn't mean I turn my nose up at a cheap meal, only that I turn my nose up at meals which are poor quality and/or flavour (aka rubbish boring food). Let me present exhibit a, the £2 hot dogs I walked to the harbour in Iceland to buy almost everyday, yes it was cheap, which was great in Iceland, but it was also absolutely delicious (I don't want to spoil the surprise as I have a whole post on the food we ate in Reykjavik in the bag but let's just say best hot dog of my life).

Anyway to cut a long story short, Dan and I are food snobs. Which is why, we have wanted to go to Sushi Samba for ages, as they are famed for serving some of the best sushi London has to offer, with a South American twist (we're talking about Brazil and Peru here) that keeps it fresh and modern. That and the fact that Sushi Samba in Heron Tower is the second highest restaurant in London (preceded only by the Duck and Waffle, who are on the next floor up, almost 200m above street level) with panoramic views out of the floor to ceiling windows that make up the outer walls of the dining room. To put it in perspective, you're dining above the Gherkin, St Pauls, the BT tower and the London Eye to name a few London highlights. With this view in mind, it makes it almost impossible to have anything but an amazing dining experience. And the lift to the top is guaranteed to make you never want to leave...or at least not go back down. So when Dan was told by his boss to take me out for a fancy dinner on the company card for working so hard (the world of Mad Men is an exciting and very generous one) he booked us in for a late lunch at Sushi Samba.

I seem to have this amazing ability to forget that I'm scared of heights, until it's too late and I'm already up high. It happens all the time, I'm all happy go lucky 'sure I'll come' to a theme park/Go Ape/stand on this glass floor which is 200000000m above the ground for your birthday and then I do it, remember, have a minor panic attack and act like a class a idiot (it's not my best look). This is how I felt in the lift, it's lucky the view is so good to distract you and food is waiting at the top otherwise I would have gone into full melt down (only slightly joking). Anyway I knew there was only way I'd be able to get back down and it would involve a considerable amount of Dutch courage to do it. So we stepped out of the lift, ears popping, ordered a cocktail at the bar and waited for our table to be ready.

Cocktails ordered, Dan went for a Nashi Martini, while I opted for a Chucumber. Dan thoroughly enjoyed his pastel cocktail, which was doing it's fruity mellow thing with the St Germain liqueur, Plum wine and lychee additions to a classic martini. I went for the Chucumber a mix of Hendrick's gin, cucumber water, maraschino liqueur and plum wine, partly because I can't resist a gin-based cocktail and I wanted something refreshing that wouldn't overpower the sushi we had planned. Yes that's right we (ok, I), had planned to a T what we were going to order. That's how excited I was for Sushi Samba, I'd already been through the menu picking stuff, consulting Dan and I'd even made a list because I panicked when Dan said we had a time restriction for how long we had the table. I'd love to say I'm spontaneous but let's be honest if we're going out for dinner together, chances are I've already looked up the menu online, and know what I'm having and what you're having too (it's all mind tactics oh you say you want the salad but look at that mound of mean that sounds delicious and so you...and me...it's all about me). Which leads nicely on to when we found out Sushi Samba didn't have any gas and could only do their grill and cold dishes, and spontaneity was thrust upon us.

Goodbye shrimp tempura, so long wagyu beef, sayonara pork belly. To be fair, Sushi Samba had rung Dan in advance and left a voicemail it just so happens we never checked it till we were already seated at our table. After the waiter explained the situation and apologised profusely multiple times, and the slight disappointment that we couldn't try some dishes that had been recommended to us by friends had worn off, we panic ordered. Well and truly. It's lucky the waiter finally stopped us and told us we were ordering too much because I would have kept going. It is true, that even when he said we'd ordered enough, I was skeptical and asked to keep the menu, you know, just in case. While we waited for our food to arrive, we chatted, taking in the views while doing some city and people watching (CELEBRITY ALERT - we saw comedian John Bishop sit down for lunch).

Of course the views are incredible and it's hard to tear your eyes away, but the room itself is stunning. With it's black and white tiled chevron floor, floor to ceiling glass windows and curved bamboo structure, you can see it gets it's origins from stylish New York. With the concrete back walls and glass windows, it could be in danger of looking a bit cold if not for Sushi Samba's trademark orange furnishings, comfy brown leather chairs, copper accents and hanging airplants. Basically it's an instagrammers dream or, you know, my dream studio apartment, whichever appeals to you more.

Samba London Roll with crab, tuna, salmon, white fish, prawn, avocado, tempura crunch, rice cracker, Japanese pickles, wasabi mayo, aji panca and soy reduction.

Crispy taquitos with lobster, avocado, aji amarillo, jalapeno, lime, maize and morado;
Yellowtail tiradito with jalapeno and lemongrass

Tuna Seviche with pomegranate leche de tigre, maiz morado, wasabi peas and basil

Shortly after ordering our food arrived, one of the good things about ordering cold dishes they make their way to you a lot faster. Food getting quicker to my stomach is something I'm never going to chastise. Although famed for their sushi we wanted to try some of their more fusion style dishes, so we opted for just the sushi samba roll to try a range of the fish they had to offer. This was definitely vibrant in vivid green and coral pink, and deliciously fresh. The different toppings of pickled vegetables, avocado and tempura accompanying the array of crab, tuna, salmon, prawn and white fish rolls were great and made each one special. Definitely a dish to order if you want to try an array of sushi. I'm not sure if Dan preferred the soy sauce or the sushi, he spent a good while before the food came just tasting the soy and oggling over how great it was (it's why we're a foodie team).

We followed up our sushi with some crispy taquitos or tacos filled with succulent sweet lobster and avocado, mixed with aji amarillo (a strong chilli sauce), jalapenos, lime, maize including a purple kind called morado, and topped with a little lettuce and red cabbage. Oh my this was good, I really wanted to eat the second one (if Dan had given me a chance to steal his I would of). It had everything I love about South American style food; a chilli hit with a lot of freshness from the lime, and a great crunch. I would definitely order them again just for me, I don't want to be sharing with Dan or anyone, even you dear reader.

Then came the last of our raw courses presented as a tiradito and ceviche/seviche (is it seviche because it's sold by Sushi Samba, I don't know, do you?). Peruvian style dining and particularly ceviche have been one of the biggest restaurant trends this past couple of years, and I am hooked on it. We had some amazing ceviche at Pachamama earlier this year including a tuna and potato one (werid I know, but read about our experience at Pachamama here) so I was intrigued to try Sushi Samba's take on it. We opted for the tuna ceviche with pomegranate tiger milk (FYI it's lime juice not real tiger's milk), some more morado, wasabi peas and basil, as it sounded like an interesting take on a fusion ceviche with a rogue addition of pomegranate. First things first, isn't it the prettiest pink ceviche you've ever seen! Like all the fish we had at Sushi Samba it was so fresh, as in a ceviche the tuna had been marinated/cooked in the tiger's milk beforehand so it was tart from the lime juice but also had a nice level of sweetness from the pomegranate. I would have liked more wasabi but then I love a bit of heat. Dan didn't think it was as good as the ceviche we had at Pachamama but we certainly ate it all...then I used a spoon to gather up the last of the tiger's milk so I'm not complaining.

A tiradito is similar to a ceviche, in the sense that they both use raw fish, the one we tried was yellowtail, but instead of marinating the fish so it's 'cooked' they serve it sashimi style with a spicy sauce. This was a spontaneous choice for us, we didn't know what it was at the time, but weren't disappointed when it showed up. This is a true fusion dish in the sense that Japanese immigrants in Peru influenced the creation of tiraditos. I loved the strong spicy flavours, the sauce was rich but kept interesting with the jalapeno and lemongrass notes (I can't resist a dish with jalapeno in). My only complaint was I felt the fish was a bit too cold but it could definitely take a whack of flavour.

Hamachi Kama with lime and su-shoyu; Poussin teriyaki with japanese-style mayonaise and yuzu koshu;
Corazon de Pollo with aji panca

Quickly realising we had ordered too much food, the hot dishes arrived. In a way it was kind of good that the restaurant could only do the grill dishes because otherwise we never would have got to try the Hamachi Kama, the neck of the yellowtail, which was served with lime, su-shoyu (a Japanese soy vinegar mix) and a courtesy bit of spiralized mooli. This dish was incredible, when Dan ordered it I was all 'but it's just grilled fish with soy it's going to be standard', let's get this out the way and say Dan was right and I was so wrong. The neck of the yellowtail fish is the juiciest, fattiest cut of the fish and you can tell, it was so flavourful it rivalled the whole deep fried seabass we had at Pachamama. The su-shoyu cut through the fattiness of the fish, it was just beautiful (I'm getting soppy). I would definitely recommend it if you're a fish fan and maybe if you're not (if there's a fish dish that could change you it'd be this).

We followed this up with poussin (it's basically a small chicken) teriyaki with Japanese-style mayo topped with yuzu kosho (a seasoning of yuzu peel, green chilli peppers and salt). This is my 'you must try this' dish, it was so tasty. The sweet moist teriyaki poussin (chicken) with the mayo and yuzu kosho I can't even begin to describe, is a dish I find myself reflecting on everytime I have a rubbish dish at the moment. It's like oh this is bad let's think about that amazing taste explosion of poussin (stop being fancy it's chicken) and the sour, citrusy mayo. This dish makes it really hard to try somewhere new, when all you want is to go back to Sushi Samba and stuff your face with teriyaki poussin (it's bloody chicken!!!), maybe don't try this you'll only hate everything else you eat for the rest of your life. It's not worth it (it is, it really is).

Two amazing dishes down, we were due for a dip and I'll be honest the Corazon de pollo and aji panca was ours. Corazon de pollo is the Spanish name for chicken hearts. Put your squeamishness aside for a second because cooked well these are delicious. We had some amazing ones when we stopped at this Brazilian restaurant in Liverpool after we watched LFC draw with Leicester earlier this year. It was just a random restaurant (whose name escapes me) that was close to our hotel and I was not expecting great things but those caramelised chicken hearts were so good. I'm not a huge lover of offal, but Dan is and with the memory of those chicken hearts in Liverpool upon us, we ordered Sushi Sambas version. The flavour was all there in terms of spiciness, but the little hearts were overcooked and as such dry, the accompanying huge maize pieces were slightly caramelised and tasted nice, but their texture was unpleasant and really hard and chewy. And that's all there is to say about this dish really (are you thinking you told me so because you hate offal? Me too. I blame Dan).

Passion fruit cake with green tea and white chocolate ganache, raspberry sorbet, coconut tuile;
Organic red chocolate chili peppers with Peruvian chili mousse, red pepper tuile, raspberry-red pepper sorbet and chocolate crumble

After the huge amount of food we'd already consumed, it was hard to imagine having any room for dessert and I was fully expecting our table to be swooped away from us as by now we'd surpassed our time limit. However, after being presented with the desserts menu, it was hard to refuse any of them, which led us to ordering not one but two puddings. Because you know if you're already full but committed to having one dessert you might as well go the whole hog. By now, I was starting to remember that I would have to get the lift back down so for good measure ordered an Eastern G & Tea for God speed while Dan opted for an Americano. I'm normally very anti gin and tonic, I just find tonic so bitter that it highlights the bitterness in the gin itself, maybe that's the point but I'm not down with it. However, this G & Tea was a very pleasant surprise, yuzu infused Hendrick's gin was combined with shiso (a Japanese mint variant), lychee and chamomile tonic, it was refreshing but with a good gin hit, enough to get me through the ordeal to come anyway.

Alongside my G & Tea, I went for the passion fruit cake with green tea and white chocolate ganache, the most delicious raspberry sorbet I've ever had, a coconut tuile, and fresh raspberries and passion fruit. First up the dessert portions are huge, Dan and I could have easily split one between us but we're incredibly greedy so we didn't. That being said I ate all of mine and could have eaten more because it was so lovely, passion fruit cake is a favourite of mine (weirdly one I've never baked, must correct that) and the green tea white chocolate ganache was heavenly smooth and sweet with a real green tea flavour not one of these pretend matcha muffins/doughnuts/cakes, it was the real deal. The sorbet was nice and sharp and cut through everything, simply put it was the perfect follow up to the rest of the meal.

Dan on the other hand, just to prove when you think you know someone they surprise you, went for the chocolate and red chili (chilli?) pepper mousse with raspberry-red pepper sorbet, red pepper tuile and chocolate crumble. Why is this so suprising? Because he hates chocolate and fruit, he's told me this multiple times, even said it about my favourite brownie recipe (oh peanut butter and jelly brownies how I love you, recipe here), but he then went and ordered this dessert. In short, this dessert was intense. The chocolate mousse was spicy but delicious, I loved the texture and flavour of the red pepper tuile, you couldn't taste any raspberry in the red pepper sorbet which was just bizarre in how much it tasted like well red pepper. It went together nicely, but it was also so strong even with me on side shovelling away we barely made a dent in this bowlful. A third of the dish would have been the right amount, but more than that it started to get a bit acrid. Just not the kind of dessert you want a mound of, but then this could all be down to personal taste.

And that was the end to our pretty amazing meal out, as expected Sushi Samba wowed with it's views and service, while producing some great food in the process. If you go, definitely try the passion cake, the poussin (CHICKEN!!!) and the Hamachi Kama (unless you don't like fish) you won't be disappointed. MISSING: the three follow up cocktails I drank at the bar outside before getting the lift back down kneeling on the floor with my eyes shut, but let's be honest no one wants to see me like that.

This week has been so stressful with work preparing for an inspection, I could use a bit of luxury dining! Do you have any luxury restaurant recommendations? I'm excited to finally meet Lisa from Not Quite Enough (who I interviewed last year, read here) for dinner tomorrow for a bit of Thanksgiving fare (p.s Happy Thanksgiving those of you reading from the USA). And on the subject of holidays, my calendar for December is pretty much full with Christmas and/or birthday plans. Of which, I'm super excited to go to Tredwells for brunch for my birthday (woo brunch!), my best friend Emily's Christmas carol service and then there's always more fondue. Have you got any exciting December plans, if so tell me about them and distract me from our inspection prep! I'm going to spend the rest of the day dreaming about Sushi Samba!

Christmas Spiced Chestnut Cinnamon Buns & Cream Cheese Frosting

2015-11-17T01:51:00.001-08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Everywhere you go

Its round about now that this Christmas song get's stuck in my head until the New Year. I don't have a problem with it, I'm feeling plenty Christmassy already having nailed all my Christmas shopping last weekend. Honestly I'm not normally this organised but as I don't have any free weekends between now and Christmas I've had to get it all done way in advance. In previous years my brother and I have been known to leave our Christmas shopping till the 24th of December (not ashamed) but this year I am the queen of present buying.

Anyway as you all know I'm a holiday lover (it's not just Halloween and Valentines Day people, see posts here and here, respectively) and Christmas is the holiday to rule them all! I can't wait to light up my pine scented candles (yes I bought shed loads, still searching for the allusive pine scented tea lights though) and crack out the Christmas Carols while wrapping up presents festive style. Usually all Christmas activity is banned in our house till December as Dan, my live at home man, is a Christmas scrooge till December 1st when he becomes the most excitable Christmas elf I've ever known. In truth, when December strikes, I think he loves Christmas even more than I do although it is debatable.

There's a lot of things I'm not allowed to do before December because they've been deemed by Dan to be too Christmassy, including these Christmas Spiced Chestnut Cinnamon Buns (I mean Christmas is their first name) but I had the perfect excuse to make them when British Lion Eggs asked me to put together a recipe using their namesake. Plus Cinnamon Buns hide everything including their Christmassy filling of mincemeat and chestnuts. In this recipe I used a jar of mincemeat (not actual meat for those living outside the UK) I've been hoarding to make mince pies with but if you don't have a stash carefully hidden away and have no idea how to get hold of some you can make it yourself. Mincemeat is incredibly easy to make (I like this recipe here) and isn't confined to the English's favourite mince pies, you can throw it into cakes, crumbles or do what I do and chuck it (nicely roll it) into your enriched dough. It's effectively brown sugar, suet, lots of dried fruit, brandy and mixed peel, with your odd variation.

I used to find making bread an absolute nightmare so would never attempt anything more difficult than a plain white loaf (very boring I know), but now I've got my proving method down I feel like I can bake anything (bigging myself up for a huge fail now) or at least an enriched dough. Is it just me or are enriched doughs the staple of Christian holidays? You've got your Hot Cross Buns for Easter, Italian Panettone at Christmas and King Cake for Epiphany. There's some history behind that and how Brioche was originally made to be a rich and extravagant bread just for the Church but I say let everyone eat brioche (or cake as the French phrase is commonly misinterpreted)!

In fact if there's one thing I love more than Christmas it's the food at Christmas, King Cake, old faithful mince pies and of course Swiss fondue. As my family is Swiss French our big celebration is on Christmas Eve. This usually consists of a big family get together or party with tons of food but always a big pot of Swiss fondue for the main course, where we dunk bread, baby potatoes and pickled veg into molten comte and gruyere cheese. There's always a lot of wine involved (word to the wise, if you're eating fondue never drink beer alongside you'll have the worst hangover ever, trust me just don't do it) which leads to plenty of forfeits when people lose their desired dipping object in the fondue pot. After fondue, I normally go out to meet some friends for a few drinks at the local pub before joining my family for Midnight Mass at Church. This has on a few occasions led to all my friends and almost half the pub coming to Mass, but the more the merrier (often literally).

Owing to our big celebration the night before, Christmas Day has to start off with some heavy breakfasting. We're talking eggs, bacon (soz veggie friends), sausages, the whole shebang, as well as plenty of doughy goodness. That's where these Christmas Spiced Chestnut Cinnamon Buns come to play. They're fragrant from all the mince meat and spices, the chestnuts and walnuts add a great texture and nutty flavour, and you can't beat an enriched dough with a cup of tea for breakfast. In France you often dip your pastries and brioche into hot chocolate for breakfast and these buns would make perfect dipping fodder. Whatever you do, don't forgo the icing, the recipe I've used makes tons of cream cheese frosting, we're talking a jam jar full. Don't be tempted to cut it down, you'd only be hurting yourself. Pour it onto the rolls like you'd pour cream onto cake before you serve them. It is quite frankly delicious. Very similar to the one served at Cinnabon (my American chain weakness). I'm a bit of a restaurant snob (what? No!), it's true, but there will always be a place in my heart for Cinnabon and their cinnamon buns.

If you're wondering where the hell you're going to find time to make these buns, don't they have to rise for ages. Let me just say this is one of the quickest doughs I've ever made. Using my proving in the oven method they only take an hour and a half to prove. So you can leave the dough to do it's thing while you peel the mountain of vegetables for your Christmas dinner. They're a deliciously extravagant bread, with very little faff involved. My perfect kind of bread. Anyway before I move on to my top 10 breads, let's get down to the recipe.

Christmas Spiced Chestnut Cinnamon Buns & Cream Cheese Frosting

(makes 9 large buns and a jam jar of frosting)

500g strong white bread flour

5 1/2 tbsp soft dark brown sugar

7g dried yeast

300ml milk

270g butter

200g cream cheese

400g icing sugar

1 egg (I used a British Lion Egg)

100g baked and peeled chestnuts

80g chopped walnuts

250g mincemeat

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Step 1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and create a well in the middle. In a saucepan heat the milk and 40g of the butter until the butter is melted, then set until it's lukewarm (tip is to put your finger in the mix if it's too hot to the touch leave it for a little longer, until the mix is comfortably warm). Once the milk is lukewarm add the yeast and 1 tbsp dark brown sugar and leave to stand for 10 minutes so the yeast can start fermenting.

Step 2. After 10 minutes pour the yeasty milk into the well with the beaten egg and mix it with a wooden spoon (or your fancy pants dough hook if you're lucky enough to have an electric mixer) until it begins to come together into a dough.

Step 3. Once the dough has come together, knead it on a floured surface for 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and is no longer sticky. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for 1 hour. If like me, you don't have a warm place to prove your dough you can prove the dough in the oven. To do this put a large roasting tin filled with boiling water from the kettle on the bottom shelf of the oven, then put the dough on the top shelf (do not cover it with a tea towel). Once that's done, on your normal oven setting (not fan that will dry the dough out) turn the oven on to 200°C for exactly 1 minute then turn it off. Bear in mind you're not waiting for the oven to come up to 200°C.

Step 4. While the dough is proving, make the filling for the rolls. Blend the chestnuts to a paste, and in a bowl combine the mincemeat, chestnut paste, chopped walnuts, nutmeg, ground allspice, 1/2 tbsp cinnamon and 4 1/2 tbsp soft dark brown sugar.

Step 5. Once the dough has proven till doubled in size after 1 hour, knock the dough back by kneading it on a floured surface until it's the same size then roll the dough out into a 1cm thick rectangle. Melt 30g butter and brush the dough all over with the butter then sprinkle the remaining cinnamon on top before evenly spreading the mincemeat mix over the dough.

Step 6. Dough covered, it's time to roll it up lengthways into a tight cylinder and cut it into nine 4 cm thick rounds. Place these rounds onto a lined baking tray and let them prove for 30 minutes until doubled in size.

Step 7. Heat the oven to 180°C and bake the rolls in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown. I'm not going to lie I like to eat these hot straight out of the oven without even a backwards glance but when they're cool I'll put a bit of cream cheese frosting on them or just dip them into a bowl full. To make the cream cheese frosting combine 200g softened butter, 200g cream cheese and 400g icing sugar together until smooth and creamy, good for drizzling or just drinking out of the jar!

Just looking at these photos is making me hungry for Christmas. I'm so excited to go home and celebrate with my family, and for a cheeky couple of drinks with my friends before Midnight Mass. I don't attend a Church where we live right now (haven't found one that fits), one of the things I love about living in and around London is the amount of different communities you have. Every year the Muslim community donates the money for a huge Christmas Tree to go up in the town centre where we live and it makes me proud to live somewhere where, on the whole, communities can live together peacefully. Anyway in short of this turning into a political crusade, I'm going to eat another cinnamon bun. Make a batch, share them around, and spread peace and good will to all men (and women!).

Thanks to Fran from Total Media and British Lion Eggs for sponsoring this post. Check out British Lion Egg's website for more egg recipes. All opinions are from yours truly!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time Brownies!

2015-11-09T13:05:00.002-08:00

Is there any baked good better than a brownie? I spent the whole weekend baking (watching films/gossiping/playing card games with my friend Alex) and I'd say a good 50% of the time I was thinking about brownies, the other 50% of me was thinking about Christmas and pine spiced candles (because I want the smell of pine but don't want to wait till we get a Christmas tree), and the rest of me was running on autopilot. Running on autopilot is scary, one moment you're commuting home on the train and the next second you're opening your front door, I mean how did I get there?! This happens to me a lot, especially when I switch it on when I'm walking to the shops and then the next thing you know I've got several bags of ice cream and tortilla chips. That's the more positive side of autopilot.

Anyway while I was running on autopilot baking something else Christmassy related, my mind kept jumping back to brownies. Fast forward two days later and I am still thinking about brownies, and seeing how I can't get them off my mind there's only one thing to do: embrace the brownies, and share my recipe for my PBJ (peanut butter jelly to those in the know) version with you. Lord knows I have enough Lindt chocolate to make a truckload of brownies (thanks Lindt!).

Let's be honest, this is my basic brownie recipe with additional peanut butter and jam, including extra chocolate chunks because I was having a bad day and I needed extra chocolate chunks (courtesy of Lindt). There's no shame in that, it's a decent brownie recipe; fudgy, plenty chocolaty with a good crust. The best thing about my brownie recipe (apart from the fact that it's a recipe for brownies) is that it's so versatile. Any combination of things that you would actually want to eat in a brownie (no sardines please) would work. My blueberry cheesecake brownies are still some of my favourites (you can grab the recipe here) but I've also made several different versions which I'm sure I'll share with you in due course seeing as brownies are taking up my full attention span right now.

PBJ and Brownies are classics. American classics. But still classics. I have always been a big fan of both, but together, now that blows my mind. When we were in Iceland (dropping it in again just in case you didn't know that we went, loved it and now I want to move there; blog post detailing this in full to follow) we went to the Lebowski Bar to among other things (watch the football) eat burgers and drink milkshakes. My main man Dan couldn't finish his strawberry milkshake so to save time I decided to finish his milkshake alongside my own peanut butter chocolate combo. Berries, peanut butter and chocolate! It's fair to say the experience was life changing and led me to the development of PBJ brownies. Classic lovers everywhere, it's time to welcome a new classic into your halls because PBJ brownies are here to stay, and not just in my house. I've been taking my brownies across the country (from London to Broadstairs), it's only a matter of time before they go global.

Plus did I mention these brownies are the perfect Winter cure? Especially when served with a big old mug of hot chocolate, which is how I'm spending most of my evenings at the moment. The big bay windows in our flat which I love during the Summer when they let in lots of glorious natural light have become my Winter nemesis. In a word they are drafty, so I'm currently snuggled up on the sofa under copious amounts of blankets in a den of cushions with a hot water bottle. Yep that's me right now. Super cool blogger that I am (literally, someone send emergency hot chocolate).

I took some of these brownies home the weekend before last when Alex, Dan and I went to see my family and chill out. It was a pretty perfect weekend, for me anyway. In truth, Dan was sick all weekend and had to recover in my brother's room. But my mum did her best to keep him fighting fit by cooking us fondue, which as always (in true Swiss fashion) was overly alcoholic and we all ate way too much cheese. My PBJ brownies were the source of constant desserts/breakfasts/much needed snacks after Alex and I took the dog for walks on the beach and went shell collecting. It was just a lazy weekend, but I'm sure the doctor would have recommended it for everyone as Dan's sickness got us all in the end and kept me from going into work and posting on schedule last week (there's a schedule?!).

Anyway brownies, an iv of rooibos tea and enough cold and flu tabs to take down a small elephant and I feel so much better this week. Like I can accomplish anything starting with eating another PBJ brownie...

Peanut Butter Jelly Brownies

(makes 14 large brownies)

250g Caster sugar
150g Salted butter
150g Plain flour
3 Eggs
150g 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate (I used Lindt Excellence)
200g Milk Chocolate (I used Lindt Excellence Extra Creamy)
175g Raspberry Jam
100g Crunchy Peanut Butter
50g Condensed Milk
2 tbsps Water

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment (tray should be at least 2cm deep). On a low heat, melt the butter. While the butter is melting, whisk together the three eggs with 250g sieved caster sugar until light and combined.

Step 2. Break the 70% dark chocolate and the milk chocolate into chunky chunks aka not too small but easily eaten pieces (make sure to keep the different types of chocolate separate). When the butter is almost entirely melted, add the 70% chocolate and stir with a metal spoon until it's one buttery, chocolatey smooth concoction, then take it off the heat and leave to cool slightly.

Step 3. While the chocolate butter is cooling, make the peanut butter topping. Mix the peanut butter, with the condensed milk and a couple of tablespoons of water till the mix is combined but loose enough to swirl into your batter later.

Step 4. When the chocolate butter has cooled slightly, give it a stir then slowly pour it into the sugary eggs whisking the eggs as you go. Once its all mixed in fold in the sieved flour, and finally add the chunks of milk chocolate and give it on final stir. Then pour the brownie mix into the lined tray and evenly spread it around.

Step 5. Working quickly, place spoonfuls of the peanut butter mix on top of the brownie at spaced intervals I like to go for the whole 5 or 6 rows of 3 large dollops per tray, but it's your call. Then add spoonfuls of the raspberry jam slightly overlapping the peanut butter. Using a chopstick, swirl the peanut butter and jam together into the brownie being careful not to go too deep. Once you're happy with your swirling, bake the brownie in the oven for 20 minutes.

Step 6. Brownies done and fudgy, leave them to cool, then pop them in the fridge for 30 minutes, before taking it out and cutting them into squares. If you're feeling ambitious, you can squash two brownies together for a proper PBJ sandwich.

I am never going to get bored of brownies. I can't believe it took me so long to make them! I'm possibly addicted to making them but you know we don't measure things in how many brownies have you eaten, more like how many you haven't. If you've got a favourite brownie recipe definitely drop it below in the comments, I'm always on the look out for new tips and tricks. Also if anyone knows where to get some pine scented tea lights, hit me up with that link. I'm off to browse the internet for more cosy homeware, how many blankets is enough? But seriously I am loving the marble/copper trend right now, our flat is looking like it came out of H&M catalogue right now #notashamed. Is there any homeware you're coveting right now?

Thanks to Sally from The Cat Café who used to work (sad times for food bloggers everywhere) for Lindt and the chocolate gurus themselves (Lindt, that's you!) for sending me a box of the finest dark chocolate around. All opinions are from yours truly!

Pre-theatre Dinner at Jar Kitchen, Covent Garden, London

2015-11-06T00:56:00.000-08:00

The Jar Kitchen's little restaurant off the seven dials has been in my line of sight for a long time. In fact it was the first place we tried to take my mum and her boyfriend to dinner to when they came to London a while ago. Unfortunately at the time there was something wrong with the Jar Kitchen's kitchen so we ended up at Pachamama instead (sorry not sorry) and we had one of the best meals we've had this year (you can read about it here). Dan, my main man, often gets invited to gigs/theatre productions/fancy dinners/anything under the sun through work and on this occasion I got to come along to see The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-time at the West End. Long story short, the play is not for epileptics or even people who aren't epileptic (I felt seriously ill afterwards), the acting is good but it can be a bit confusing at times as you have actors playing multiple characters sometimes even in the same scene, and there's a real live puppy in it at the end. The dog may or may not have been have been my favourite part of this show. Anyway go, make up your own mind or don't if you have epilepsy/migraines/photosensitivity/a hatred for clubbing.

Anyway, a trip to the theatre means one thing to me; pre-theatre dinner. Given the choice obviously I'd rather eat like the Romans, stay in a restaurant for hours gorging myself till I'm sick then eating some more but unfortunately pre-theatre dinner translates into quick eating. Especially if you're me and can't get to Covent Garden till 6.30pm and the show starts at 7.30pm, and you're freaking out because you don't want to be late for the play but you need to eat and you're not sure you can eat anything in less than an hour that isn't a McDonalds, and you haven't had a McDonalds for at least 5 years and you don't want to break that roll because it makes you depressed and why would you eat something that depresses you! Obviously you can see how this stresses me out, probably for no real reason apart from I'm a really horrible hungry person to be around and the thought of eating McDonalds again fills me with dread (am I the only one who feels depressed after eating it?). You can probably also see why my doctor is concerned I have high blood pressure but that's a story for another time.

Anyway it was about this time that my gloom was setting in thinking about how we'd never find a decent restaurant that could feed us in time, when my thoughts strayed back to the Jar Kitchen. Based in Covent Garden it's location is perfect if you need to dash out quickly to head to your show plus their pre-theatre menu is a thing of actual beauty. I mean two courses for £16? It's a bargain, it's a steal, it's seriously great food off their normal menu. Because I was running late, Dan got their early and ordered without me, we both eat and love the same food so it's not an issue. Like the sensible man that he is, he decided to forgo ordering dessert for fear we'd miss the start of the play, this turned out to be the best decision because we were so full after the starter and main I wouldn't have been able to manage dessert although naturally I would have tried to.

Finally I arrived to find an aperol based cocktail in my place, which was not my cup of tea; a bit too strong and bitter for me, I thought Dan knew me? Turns out he doesn't know himself very well either as he ordered two. The decor at Jar Kitchen is minimal with a twist of Kitsch. Pewter coloured walls, wooden features, lots of jars (hence the name) and plenty of whimsy in the form of nick nacks and wild flowers. There can't be more than ten tables in the restaurant so if you're going there for dinner and secrets, you might want to pick a more secluded spot, but in my experience small restaurants means good service, atmosphere and food cooked to precision.

Dan had ordered two starters for us to share, the Sea Bass Ceviche with Fennel, Avocado, Herby Salad and Toasted Seeds, and the Ox Cheek and Cheddar Croquettes with Aioli. As expected Dan had chosen well. The sea bass was fresh and tasty with a very clean salad accompaniment, it wasn't as good as some of the ceviche I've had elsewhere (second Pachamama reference) but I liked it, Dan loved it, it was an all round good dish. When I saw the ox cheek croquettes, I was very surprised it did not look at all pretty, but the taste was amazing. Honestly when cheese is involved in a dish it takes it to a new level and served in a crispy on the outside, fall away beef on the inside croquettes it made these croquettes spectacular. So moreish I would have happily eaten the whole plate to myself, in fact I pretty much did, opting to devour two out of the three beefy balls while offering Dan more ceviche. I'm tricksy like that.

Starters quickly devoured, we were making good time for our play, but would the mains be as quick. Join us after the interval to find out.

Welcome back. I hope you have stocked up on ice cream, have used the facilities and have your honorary interval glass of wine in hand. I miss when films had intervals in cinemas, Spectre could have used an interval. Me and my friend Louie decided to get pints and he bought doughnuts for the occasion, and not any doughnuts, Crosstown Doughnuts (read about my love affair with them here). But a stomach of dough, a beer and a long film call for an interval. Anyway welcome back, let's move on to the mains.

Right one main course was spectacular, comforting but exciting and delicious with lots of different textures, the other main was nice. You know it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was just nice (obscure Into the Woods reference, also another long film that could have used an interval). There was nothing wrong with it, we ate it all, but perhaps in comparison to the other dish we had it didn't have a lot going for it. Our favourite dish was the Mixed Grain Salad with sweet Roasted Heirloom Carrots, refreshing Coconut Yoghurt and braised Lamb Shoulder with speckles of pomegranate and slivers of almonds. Looking at the dish you know it's going to eat well, it was just delicious. Dan and I fought over this dish, in fact at one point Dan refused to eat any more of the other main (he's so spoilt), did I roll over and let him eat all the salad? Did I hell, our forks clashed with fury as we fought over the chunks of braised lamb and pomegranate seeds. It wasn't too dissimilar to salads we make at home, but with the roasted carrots and the braised lamb shoulder it was a comforting homely dish elevated to restaurant standards. I love it when you have a dish where every mouthful is different and this one was exceptional.

Our second main of Pork Neck with Fennel, Carrots and Mustard Jus was, as I said, nice. Compared to the salad it was very heavy, and maybe this was our problem with it. As it lacked much in the way of green vegetables and the sauce was slightly overpowering with the mustard, it was a bit one dimensional and a disappointment. That being said we ate it all. If I was to go there again I would 100% get the salad again but would not recommend sharing it because the truth is you won't want to. I mean you could share it, we did, but let me warn you if you do share be prepared for serious talks about where your relationship is going on the way home after fork fights.

Mains finished we settled up and practically ran from the restaurant, not from the pork neck but running to our show, which we just made on time. So a word to the wise, if you want a three course dinner before your theatre trip make sure you get there early. We're talking half 5 at the latest, unless you like eating your dessert from tupperware, then go ahead. I'll be back to visit Jar Kitchen for a salad all to myself and maybe a plate or two of ox cheek croquettes real soon. Plus it'd be wrong not to go back and try their desserts.

So film intervals, where did they go? Now I'm thinking about it, maybe it was only the local cinemas I used to go to that had intervals, did VUE take the interval away? I used to love going and getting poppets (mint obviously) and popcorn at half time with my brother. What was the last film you saw with an interval? I literally cannot remember, the first Lord of the Rings maybe? Me and some friends are going to see the ballet tonight. I'm so excited. I've always loved ballet although I was never particularly good at it...too much cake and additional loves for swimming and gymnastics. But watching the ballet on the television at Christmas is a tradition, and my favourites are perhaps stereotypically Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. Which is why I am super excited to be seeing the Nutcracker! Say whatttt? I know, I'm beside myself. I'm going to see the Nutcracker and Cursed Child (p.s I got tickets with Sophie), it's crazy! Do you like the ballet? Have you ever been? What can I expect?! Everyone says the sound of the dancers is tremendous. I guess I'll find out tonight!

Thanks for the ramble.

Harry Potter & the Kitchen of Secrets

2015-10-27T05:24:00.004-07:00

So we all know about my obsession with dinosaurs, which is most specifically linked to having seen Jurassic Park a gazillion times. But I might have failed to mention I am as obsessed if not slightly more crazy about Harry Potter (the books not Daniel Radcliffe) than I am about dinosaurs. It's not something I've purposely kept from you guys, it just never cropped up. That is until Sophie and I confided in each other. Ever since I missed out on going to Kate from The Little Library Cafe's Harry Potter themed Supper Club, I've been dreaming about throwing my own inspired dinner party, a Death Day Party if you will, after all it is Halloween. Finally I just threw it out there that Sophie and I should collaborate and do some Harry Potter baking together.

To say Sophie was keen would be an understatement. Gryffindor scarf adorned, Harry Potter food themed pinterest board at the ready and bag with enough baking ingredients for Hogwarts Halloween Feast in tow, Sophie arrived at my flat. In fact, I knew she'd arrived before she rang the doorbell as I saw her outside peering into my neighbours car. To clarify Sophie's not a car burglar, she was just jealous of the stuffed Ponyo hanging from their car mirror, although I wouldn't put it past her to steal Ponyo. After several cups of tea, the very short flat tour (which includes the cupboard/bathroom under the stairs), and a good hour spent nattering about everything and anything. We got down to baking or at least deciding what to bake.

Now if you're a fellow HP fan, you'll know we had to make Harry's favourite dessert; Treacle Tart to those in the know. Pumpkin pasties were a must too, you can't go too wrong with alliterative food. And finally Butterbeer Pumpkin Cupcakes, because whoever said the cupcake trend is dead is an idiot and just to make them HP worthy we added some butterbeer icing.

You might be thinking those foods are not the most exciting foods in Harry Potter, where's the blood lollipops and cockroach clusters? I'm going to play it straight with you, I love Halloween but gross looking food ain't for me. Anything that remotely looks like blood or severed fingers (I have a real issue with damaged hands) or an insect is a no go. One year Dan's parents bought us some fried insects for Christmas, it was the only gift I've ever thrown at someone as Dan dangled a cricket in front of my face. Call me old fashioned but I like my Halloween food to be fun, 100% edible and have no body parts.

All of the HP themed dishes we made were great, but Sophie and I both had different favourites. I was in love with the creamy oozey cheesiness of the Pumpkin Pasties, while Sophie favoured the Butterbeer Pumpkin Cupcakes for their moist fragrant cake and mound of caramel-ly icing and toppings. This makes the Treacle Tart sound unappreciated, but then that lemon ginger goddess was Dan's love. So I'm just going to say make them all, then share with friends, you can even keep back your faves if you're a Slytherin fan.

My family has always made a big deal out of Halloween, something that isn't as common in the UK as it is elsewhere in the world (I'm looking at you USA). Maybe it's because a lot of people are anti Halloween in the UK because it's huge commercialisation or because some people think it's a Satanic festival (not true guys it's Christian!). Similar to Mexico's Day of the Dead, Halloween's origins are as a Christian festival where you celebrate the lives of your dead loved ones, Saints and Martyrs with a huge feast, while calling out all the bad demons and telling them it's time for them to push off. It just shows how different people's ideas of religion are even if you are of the same faith, as I have some Christian friends who are staunch Halloween Haters whereas my family has always been pro Halloween...and HP for that matter.

Anyway comment on religion aside, we have always celebrated Halloween. In the Falklands we used to dress up (as a sea witch/ice witch/normal witch) and get together as a community. When we moved to the UK we were the kids with the legendary Halloween parties helped by the fact that at one point we lived in a flat in a castle with suits of armour and plenty of creepy places to hide, plus we had doughnut bobbing. Of course as we got older there was the occasional drunken Halloween party. However, for me Halloween always starts the same way, going home to my mum, making toffee/chocolate apples and drawing faces on 'pumpkin' tangerines, and giving them out to trick or treaters. While drinking a glass or two of wine together of course, eating lots of cheese and maybe some pumpkin based goods.

This year, my friend Alex, is also coming to witness our Halloween traditions and eat some fondue (when your family is Swiss fondue is practically a tradition). I'm currently trying to convince her that a Halloween swim in the sea is also an annual occurrence but we'll see how long that lie holds for. One thing we'll definitely crack out is some HP treats to watch the kid himself, so if you're not a Halloween fan, consider celebrating HP instead by baking up a spread house-elves would be proud of.

Treacle Tart(s)

(serves 4 either as small tartlets or one tart)

115g plain flour

55g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1 egg

60g breadcrumbs

300g golden syrup

Pinch of ground ginger

Zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. To make the pastry dough, rub together the butter and flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then beat in the egg and knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth (you might need to add a bit more flour if so go for it).

Step 2. Roll out the dough to 5mm thick on a lightly floured surface and place into the tart tin(s), working it into the creases using a buffer of pastry (very GBBO) then leave the pastry to chill for 30 minutes (if possible, if you're too hungry go to the next part of the step). Don't worry about any excess pastry over the top of the tart it's better to let it all hang over then fit the tin, plus we'll cut that off later. To avoid spillages in your oven, place the tins onto a flat tray. Then bake the pastry in the oven blind (fill the tarts with baking paper and rice or ceramic baking balls) for 10 minutes.

Step 3. While the tart(s) are blind baking, make the filling. Mix the real breadcrumbs (none of those fake dough ones), golden syrup, ginger and zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon together.

Step 4. When the tart cases have been blind baked, take them out of the oven. Carefully removing the baking balls or rice, and baking paper, then cut any overhanging pastry off the top of the tarts. Pour in the golden syrup mixture into each tart till it's a couple of mm's from the top, then bake them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Step 5. Take the tarts out of the oven and leave them to cool for a good hour, remove the tin, picture yourself in the Great Hall and eat with pleasure.

Pumpkin Pasties

(makes 16-18, or one ginormous one - don't let me stop your ambition)

500g puff pastry

390g pumpkin, grated (or chopped as fine as you can!)

18 pumpkin seeds

200g gruyere cheese, grated

1 small bunch of sage, chopped

1 bunch of parsley, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely grated

50ml double cream

1 egg

Salt and pepper to taste

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, 150g gruyere, garlic, parsley, sage and the cream, then season to taste (go light on the salt at first there's a lot of cheese in this).

Step 2. Roll our the pastry to 5mm thick on a lightly floured surface, using a round pastry cutter (~6cm in diameter) cut out 32-34 circles, this will make 16-18 pasties. Pull the circles into pumpkin shapes (make them a bit wider) and set half of the pastry circles on a lined baking tray a good 2-3cm apart.

Step 3. Put about a tablespoon of the pumpkin mix in the middle of each pasty and brush the edges with a bit of beaten egg. Make three crescent moon scores or a bum score aka (|) in the top half of the pasty and place it on top of the filled base pressing down to seal.

Step 4. Pumpkin pasties assembled, paint the top with some more beaten egg and sprinkle on a bit of the reserved gruyere and press down a pumpkin seed into the top of the pumpkin pasty as a stalk. Then bake them in the oven for 15-20 minutes till they're all golden and the cheese has good and melted.

Step 5. Once cooked, remove the pasties from the oven and eat them warm from the oven. Alternatively wrap them up, hop on the train, eat a pumpkin pasty and start cursing felllow passengers in your carriage with bat bogey hexes.

Butterbeer & Pumpkin Cupcakes
(makes 18-20)

For the pumpkin cupcakes
225g pumpkin flesh, grated (or chopped as fine as you can!)

200g unsalted butter
210g caster sugar
250g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

40ml buttermilk

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla paste
1 heaped tbsp stem ginger in syrup

For the butterbeer icing

140g salted butter

280g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 tsp caramel flavouring

Few drops of orange food colouring

Toppings

Smashed pretzels

Butterscotch fudge pieces

Gold stars

Edible gold glitter

Chocolate coated popping candy

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a very large bowl, whisk together the grated pumpkin, stem ginger, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla paste, butter and sugar (make sure you use softened butter!).

Step 2. Then add the sifted flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of sode, salt and spices and stir this in using a wooden spoon.

Step 3. Place one tablespoon of the mixture into each cupcake case. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes till golden and a skewer comes out clean. Allow them to cool while you make the icing.

Step 4. Whisk together the butter and sifted icing sugar, slowly at first to avoid clouds of icing sugar till it's all combined. Then add the vanilla paste, caramel flavouring and orange food colouring till it looks slightly golden in colour.

Step 5. Once the cakes have cooled, pipe the icing onto the cupcakes using a piping bag. We used a star nozzle but let loose in fact you can just dunk the cupcakes in the icing sugar if you really want. Toppings are crucial to this recipe, we went for some salty smashed pretzels, butterscotch fudge, anything that glittered and popping candy, but use your imagination. Chuck on some bertie bots flavoured beans or a cockroach cluster or two, or play it safe with some chocolate sprinkles. You will choose (obscure Harry Potter quote).

Step 6. Cupcakes compiled, stuff one or 6 into your mouth after one another. Then move on to a pasty or three, and finish it all up with some treacle tart and clotted cream. Harry would be proud.

Do you have any Halloween traditions? I'm a big fan of ours. It was so nice to do some joint baking with Sophie and discover our shared loves of Harry Potter and Studio Ghibli, we're practically soul sisters. Make sure you check our her blog if you're not following her already. Making friends with other bloggers is the most unexpected but amazing thing about blogging, I've made so many great friends through blogging. Friends I can about the highs and lows of blogging with, but also just gossip about general life and even go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child together with. Say what, dropping at the last possible moment that a play self-titled as the 8th Harry Potter book is coming out in London and tickets go on sale tomorrow!!!!!!!! Is that enough exclamation masks. Hell NO!