Christmas goodies

So I promised I would share some Christmas presents with you all! I have been coveting the Harrods Ruby Slippers for months. Unfortunately they sold out on the Harrod's website in no time and soon after were sold out in the Harrods store in London. Then the price of the skyrocketed on ebay so I thought my dream shoes were lost to me.


I was very surprised and excited when I opened a box on Christmas mornining and saw a little Wizard of Oz logo peeking out from beneath the paper. My boyfriend got me my dream shoes! I'm a very lucky girl. They are so beautiful. I'm going to save them for nights out that do not in any way involve alcohol! Too precious to be scuffed! I think people are saving them as collector's items but they're too pretty not to be worn.


I also got the print I shamelessly hinted at, it's beautiful. I can't wait to hang it above my bed. And it's gold! It matches the gorgeous bracelet my boyfriend bought me, my sister was laughing because nearly everything I own is covered in bows. As well as that I got other lovely and useful things a lightbox alarm to try to quash my bad moods in the mornings, a much needed external hard drive, itunes card so I can buy all the apps I want and money towards driving lessons (badly needed!).

Usually I get really excited about boxing day sales but I don't get paid until the 31st and I also couldn't be bothered leaving my warm bed on boxing day. I popped out to the shops for an hour last night and there's not much going, I got a few things in the sale but most of what I bought was full price, including these amazing fly earrings and this Love necklace from River Island.

I heart Victoria Sponge.

So Christmas is over, I hope you all had a relaxing, food filled time! I'm going to photograph the lovely things I got once my room is not completely covered in wrapping paper and chocolate wrappers. In the meantime I thought I'd share some photos of a cake I baked this morning.

A family friend got us a deal on a Kitchenaid mixer, we saved over £100 so I baked a Victoria Sponge cake to say thank you. It was the first time I'd used this recipe and as I gave the cake away I can't vouch for the taste but it was simple to make and smelled really good. It's from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I made buttercream instead of using double cream.



The Kitchenaid Artisan Mixer is amazing, it really speeds things along. It only takes me half the time to bake now! More time = more cake.






Ingredients:

* 225 grams unsalted butter, very soft
* 225 grams sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 4 large eggs
* 200 grams self-rising cake flour
* 25 grams cornflour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder (only needed if using food processor).
* 4 tablespoons milk
* Raspberry jam for filling and either double cream or vanilla buttercream.

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cream butter and sugar, add the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour between each one. Fold in the rest of the flour and cornstarch and enough of the milk to create a mixture that is a soft, dropping consistency.
3. Alternatively, put all ingredients except milk in a food processor and process to a smooth consistency. Then add milk slowly and pulse to reach soft, dropping consistency.
4. If you are using the food processor method, add the baking powder now.
5. Pour and scrape the batter into 2 - 8" round cake pans that have been buttered and lined with parchment or wax paper. Bake for about 25 minutes, until cakes are beginning to come away from the edges, are springy to the touch on top and a cake tester comes away clean. Leave the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 min before turning out and leaving to cool completely.
6. For the filling I used raspberry jam and a simple vanilla buttercream recipe, though the original recipe calls for whipped double cream. The top is dusted in icing sugar, edible rainbow art glitter and a heart I cut from Regal icing and painted with food colouring.

France and Photographs by Sarah Kane.

Hello all! I'm back from France, our flight got cancelled and we had to drive to Spain and fly from there but I'm home now. I had a very relaxing time. It was freezing, so as you can imagine lovely to sit inside by the roaring fire with a cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows.

My lovely and very talented friend Sarah Kane photographed some cupcakes I baked for her. They're just plain vanilla with a bit of sparkle! I am so pleased with these photos, and very grateful for all the work Sarah put into them! Please check out her blog and have a look at her website. She's extremely talented, I envy her so much. Her photographs are beautiful in every sense.

I'm off to the south of France until Friday. I'm sure I will return with lots of nice photos for you, but in the meantime have a photo of the cupcakes I baked last week with my new kitchenaid mixer.