Confession: I cheated at baking.

So I decided it was time to try my hand at Cake Pop making. Last week I purchased a really cute book (check it out here) telling me all about it, and everyone I had spoken to had told me they were ridiculously easy to make. After I read through said book, I began to think they were a lot more fiddly than I first thought.

I continued my research and struck gold in the form of this beauty:

Here it is, the cake pop maker. It boasted that it would create perfectly round cake pops in under four minutes, no messing. Does it work, I hear you cry? Big fat YES it does. Usually, I choose to do everything the hard way when baking, I hate using microwaves and pre-packaged flavourings and much prefer making everything from scratch. I quite like feeling the burn of my biceps when creaming my butter and sugar together. So this badboy was a big step for me. 

I have promised a set of cake pops to my friend who is running a Charity Clothes Swapping party so I tried not to use up a lot of the nice sprinkles I have with my practice batch, but here they are:

I used a Chocolate Batter, and added 'Simply Melt' White Chocolate.

Now that I know the machine works, and works very well, my next batch will be on sticks as they are supposed to be and I will experiment a bit more with the decoration. I would highly recommend this product to anyone who loves baking! I'm sure it would work well if you are baking with children too.

P.s. they taste pretty nice too!

Much Love xxx

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Crumble O'Clock...

As the hunt for a job continues...so do my culinary adventures. After a nice swim this morning and some time to relax this afternoon, we took a trip to our local farm shop to get some mince for me to make chilli. They also have this great freezer section in which they keep mixed fruit, so that seemed like the perfect idea for dessert! This is so easy I don't need to share a recipe, i'll use my own experience for this one! P.s. you can easily adapt this for every season - I love adding cinnamon to it at Christmas :)


Mixed Berrylicious Crumble


Equipment:


- Medium sized pan
- Wooden Spoon
- Weighing Scales
- Mixing Bowl
- Ovenproof Dish


Ingredients:


- (approx) 250g of Mixed Fruit (any of your choice, I used berries!)
- 2 tbsps of sugar


For the Crumble topping:


- 175g of Plain Flour
- 75g of Sugar
- 75g of Butter


Method:


1. As my fruit was frozen, I stuck it in a pan for about ten minutes to stew, and added the 2 tbsps of sugar. 


2. Pour your fruit into your oven proof dish.


3. To make your crumble topping; mix the flour and the butter together into a fine crumble so that it resembles bread crumbs, before pouring on top of your fruit, mix in the sugar.


4. Pour the crumble topping on top of your fruit.


5. Bake for about 30-35 minutes at 180oC

The end result - it went down well!

We had it with Vanilla Ice-Cream :)

Much Love xxx

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Easy Peasy Lemon (Drizzle) Squeezy!

This week we invested in Paul Hollywood's new book titled 'How to Bake,' (copy and paste this link - it's got some lovely recipes: look here.


Anyway, I was flicking through it in the supermarket and quickly spotted my first challenge. It was so easy and delicious (and very fast at disappearing) so I thought this should be the next recipe I should share. 

'Mrs Post's Lemon Drizzle Cake'

 Equipment Needed: 

 - Mixing Bowl 
- Wooden Spoon (OR electric whisk) 
- Weighing Scales 
- 1Kg Loaf Tin 

 Ingredients: 

 - 75g of Softened Unsalted Butter - plus extra for greasing 
- 125g of Caster Sugar 
- 150g of Self Raising Flour 
- 1 tsp Baking Powder (which wasn't in my cupboards, o-oh!)
 - 2 Medium Eggs1 
- 1 tbsp of Lemon Curd (I used a bit more to make it extra lemony!)
- 2 1/2 tbsp of full fat milk

 For the (yummy) drizzle: 

 - Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
 - 2 tbsp of granulated sugar 

 Method: 

 1. Heat the oven to 180oC. Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line it with baking parchment. 

 2. Beat the butter and caster sugar together in a large bowl, either with an electric whisk or with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is light and fluffy, which may take upto ten minutes. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, eggs, lemon curd and milk, mixing all the time, until they are thoroughly combined. 

 3. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

 4. Meanwhile, for the drizzle, mix the lemon zest and juice with the granulated sugar. Pour the lemon drizzle over the HOT cake in the tin. Leave to cool completely.

5. Put the kettle on.

The Finished Cake

Ready for a slice!

Much love xxx

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Recipe of the moment: Fruit Cobbler

One thing I may not have mentioned is that I am a kitchen dweller. I love cooking and baking and am always on the hunt for good recipes to experiment with. I think everything tastes better when it's homemade, so I thought I would share a few of my favourite recipes that I pick up as I go.

Baking is so much easier than people think it is - there usually isn't much prep for simple cakes and once it's in the oven you have time to put your feet up and drink a cuppa, so it's the perfect past time! Whilst I was in America, I was introduced to The Pioneer Woman (check out her blog/website -http://thepioneerwoman.com/) and was kindly given one of her recipe books. I also had a bit of time to try out one of her dishes which is one of the easiest and tastiest desserts I've ever made!

So here it is (slightly adapted from the original!):

Raspberry and Blueberry Cobbler


You can use any fruit you wish, the original was blackberry. I've also made a raspberry and blackberry which was rather tasty!


As this recipe is American - the measurments are all in cups, not grams. For this I have a cute solution:

These are my measuring cups - that look like Russian Dolls, you can get them from Amazon, they are so handy and don't take up much room in the cupboards!

Equipment:

- Ceramic baking dish, round or rectangular

- Mixing Bowl

- Whisk

Ingredients:

- 1 Stick of Butter - equivalent to 4ounces or approx 110g

- 1 1/4 cup of Sugar

- 1 cup of Self-Raising Flour

- 1 cup of Milk

- 2 cups of Blackberries (or a mixture of whatever fruit you are using!)

Method:

1. Melt the butter either in a pan or in a microwavable dish. 

2. Pour 1 cup of sugar and flour into a mixing bowl, whisking in the milk.

3. Then, pour the butter into the mixture and whisk it all together.

4. Lightly grease your baking dish.

5. Wash and dry the fruit.

6. Pour the batter into your baking dish and sprinkle the fruit onto the top, distributing evenly. 

7. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar on the top. (For this, I used brown sugar which gave it a darker and crispier texture)

8. Cook in the oven on Gas Mark 4/180oC for one hour, or until golden brown.

9. About ten minutes before the cobbler is cooked, sprinkle on a little extra sugar if desired!

Before going in the oven:

The finished product! Serve with cream or ice-cream :)

Much Love xxx

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From flip-flop frolics to flood warnings...I miss America.

So, my American vacation has been and gone and life has returned to normal. Getting caught in the rain with my flip flops on has happened most days since I got back, and I am still in denial about my broken Cath Kidston handbag umbrella...I just cannot bear to throw it away, so I have been quite wet this week. On my first week back I have visited a few coffee shops, (I missed these whilst being in Arizona) had a few cocktails (bellini's are fast becoming my favourite) and found out I got a 2:1 in my degree and am finally a fully qualified youth worker. So this has all been rather exciting. 


Not only this, but I have decided to try my hand at cakepop making, I ordered a nifty looking machine today to help me in this endeavour. I've also started my first scrapbook to record my holiday memories and have been trying out some all American recipes which I will share on this blog. I feel very inspired to get crafty whilst I wait to hear back from the various jobs I have applied for and am excited to take a bit of time to enjoy the small things in life. 


Here are some pictures of my recent trip:

The Sunset at Kitt Peak Observatory, Tucson AZ

A rather nice view on a drive to somewhere..!

At a Gas Station in Petrified Forest

At the Petrified Forest

Beautiful Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly National Park

Hello, Utah

Myself and John Wayne posing at Gouldings Lodge, UT

My favourite picture of the holiday, Gouldings Lodge, UT

Myself in Monument Valley, UT

Monument Valley, UT

I love this picture too!

'The Sun's Eye' Rock, Monument Valley, UT

Myself with the Bar-M Wranglers in Moab, UT

At the Bar-M Cowboy Night (My favourite night of the vacation!)

Myself in Canyonlands National Park, UT

A spectacular view in Canyonlands National Park, UT

Before a fun night seeing 'Back to the Past' at the Gaslight Theatre, Tucson, AZ

The sunset of our final evening in Tucson

It was a great adventure and I loved getting to see parts of Utah, it is such a stunning state. We also spent time in Sedona which is an interesting place and of course, Tucson was as lovely as ever. It was the perfect way to celebrate 3 years of hard work, and now I have my results I feel happier than ever. 

Here's to the next chapter!

xxx

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Thoughts on Love.

The topic of Love so far has been one of my favourite parts of life's journey. Love inspires people, encourages people, brings people together and makes sacrifices, amongst many other things. 

Love is what motivates me, more specifically the love that I have found through my ever growing Faith in my ever loving God. In the Bible, the greatest commandment relates to love.

 'Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them.' Matthew 25:37-40 

Do we love ourselves? If we do, how well? We weren't created to hate or dislike what we are, for we were created IN love, through love, BY love. (1 John 4:8) The image we see in the mirror is a reflection of our creator, when He looks at me, He loves what He sees. He promises that nothing can separate me from the love that He has for me, (Romans 8:38-39) and I have learnt to embrace that. I am full of life because of that fact. We have to accept that, because that is truth, and truth brings freedom. None of us should be bound by anything, rather we should be living in freedom of acceptance, knowing that we were made exactly how we were supposed to be. That doesn't mean we don't have our down days, trust me! But this is something that needs to be constantly grasped.

One of my favourite pieces of the Bible is here:

"So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God." Philippians 1:9-11

I find these verses so fascinating - it's all well and good wanting to love absolutely EVERYONE we ever meet, but sometimes we have to understand that though we may love people, we may not always be the right person to help them. Sometimes we have to back away from certain friendships or relationships and focus more time and energy on others. It is ok that friendships may come to a natural end, it does not mean you do not love that person, because recognising that a season is over is part of life. We must love WELL, this is rich and deep and is not shallow or surface-level. Jesus focussed a lot of his ministry on hanging out with those who were cast out by their society, and at times, sacrificed his reputation to be with them. That, is love. He gave them his time, his words and truth. That is our job. We don't have to be known by everyone, we have to be wise and understand that sincere love has more of an impact than offering a sprinkling of love here and there because it is 'what we should do.' I would much rather have a positive, deep and meaningful impact upon 3 people that would change their lives than love 300 people a little bit and make no difference whatsoever. We are not here to make a song and dance about this fact, we are here plainly and simply as instruments of love, showing people that this God we believe in is actually pretty great. 

For me, loving God's creation is the most natural response in the world after what I believe He did for me. How could it not be?

x x x x

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A Farewell to Chester...x

I just wanted to dedicate a quick post to all those whom I have had the chance to get to know/work alongside/live with/drink tea with throughout my time in Chester. I have met SO MANY wonderful people in such a short space of time and you have made the past three years such an unforgettable adventure for me. I certainly wont miss the essays, but I will miss walking to Tesco and bumping into approximately 1 million people I know and love on the way. I especially want to thank everyone at Northgate Church, (sorry I wimped out at saying a proper goodbye!) you’re all amazing and I will certainly visit you in the future! 


And to the rest, thank you all for being wonderful friends, for all the support and love I have received from you and for the work we have done together. It feels like the right time to move on now but I will always look back on my time here with a real fondness!! I hope I have helped each one of you as much as you have helped me! All the very best for the future in all of your endeavours! You all have a special place in my heart. Don't forget that the door to Yorkshire is always open, and it will forever be the greatest place on Earth.


Drink tea and think of me...


LOVE YOU ALL and EVERY BLESSING 




Sarah xxxxxx

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