How To Make Chocolate Macaroons!

This is the first ever time I have made Chocolate Macaroons, and it is safe to say that they were not the best I have tasted but they were still edible and not that bad as a first try! I also added in a bit of red food colouring the make the macaroons a slightly more purple colour! Hopefully the pictures above will show what we did! (:

75 grams plain flour

25 grams cocoa powder

125 grams icing sugar

2 large egg whites

15 grams caster sugar

1. Firstly preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line baking tray with grease proof paper.

2. Then sift together the flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar into a mixing bowl.

3. Next whisk the egg whites until fairly stiff.

4. Add the caster sugar in slowly as you whisk the egg whites further till they form very stiff peaks.

5. Fold the whites into sifted dry ingredients, and combine gently until it is well-incorporated.

6. Pipe small rounds onto lined baking tray with 1cm plain nozzle, (or if you haven't got a piping bag we used rolled up grease proof paper, it didn't work that well but it did the job!) let them sit for 10 minutes to form a skin, then bake in oven for 10-12 minutes. Note at this point, they should be set but not dried out.

7. Remove macaroon shells from oven and let them cool on a rack while they are still on the baking tray. While they are cooling you should make the buttercream filling to stick the macaroon shells together!

For the Chocolate Buttercream:

55 grams cocoa powder, sifted

250 grams icing sugar, sifted

125 grams unsalted butter, softened

1. Cream together the butter and icing sugar.

2. Add sifted cocoa powder and mix until you get a smooth buttercream. (we didn't have cocoa powder so used Hot Chocolate powder instead)

3. Fill a cooled macaroon shell with the buttercream and sandwich it with another shell.

Vintage Fair - goffbot.com

A friend of mine told me about the Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair, and I am so glad she did!
I started making jewellery in March last year but I was too nervous to start up my own business, but after making and designing hundreds of pieces of jewellery from necklaces to hair slides, I decided to take the plunge only a couple of months ago and I created a page on Etsy, and since then I have had no regrets.
One day I just saw Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair in a blog post I follow, and decided to look on their website as to when the next one was. By the time I looked at the website the next Vintage Fair was only a couple of weeks away! I spoke to a few of my friends about whether I should do the fair or not, and after a lot of debate and working out if I could afford to do so, I signed up straight away!
The people that work at Judy's were so great and helped me feel at home at the fair. I am so glad that I decided to do the Vintage Fair, the experience itself was amazing, and it helped me to get out the name of my company and my details, but also helped me gain confidence in the items that I am making and selling. I will definitely be going to the next Vintage Sale!

University

So I’ve been at university for about 5months, and we are a couple of weeks into the second semester. Everything is changing rather rapidly, some of my flat mates and I have found a house and we are preparing to move in September. When I first came to university about 100 miles away from the tiny village of Wolvey I was worried about making friends and not fitting in. I really do not know what I was worried about, I have made four amazing friends that I can not imagine being in Cambridge with! They have made me feel so comfortable and really helped with the transition from being at home with my mum, to moving hours away from her. I really can not wait until September when we get our house and have endless fun tehe! Love these guys.

Minecraft Redstone Ore Night Light

A couple of weeks I ordered this Redstone Ore Night Light from Thinkgeek.com, and today it arrived! This Minecraft Light-Up Redstone Ore works by tapping it to activate the light, it has several different settings for the light low, medium, and bright shades – guaranteed to keep pigmen out! I was personally a little bit disappointed with the size of the night light, for the price of $24.99 I was expecting it to be slightly bigger than 3″ x 3″ x 3″. But overall I am extremely happy the light and can not wait until I have enough money to order the Minecraft Light Up Torch.

me.

These are a couple of photos that sum up me. I’m passionate about drawing and creating things, especially for my etsy site goffbot.com which I started in January but I have been making jewellery for over a year in preparation for setting up the shop. I also enjoy photography in my spare time, I usually use a Diana Lomo film camera or a cheap film camera and then send them away to get developed. I personally prefer to use a film camera, the grainy quality from my plastic film camera makes the photographs I take have a different feel. I am also extremely passionate about music, listening to and discovering new bands. Kids Can’t Fly are an unsigned band from the South of England, I go and watch them as much as I can and I plan on following them on tour next time they are performing!

Likes – music, art and salad!

Dislikes – lairs, the dark and the smell of bacon!

New Years Resolutions

One of my New Years Resolutions was to create a blog - more of a virtual/ visual diary, it will likely include outfits, music interests, day to day goings about and most of all my interests! 

New Years Resolutions

Spend more time with the ones I love

Start up jewellery business (http://t.co/MAuJEbnW)

Don't waste a day

Start a blog

I started a blog a while ago but I never stuck to it, but hopefully this time round I will succeed! This post may be 19 days too late - but better late than never right? I am managing so far to stick to my resolutions, but for how long?

Have you got any Resolutions?

Just another day

    I suppose everything in life happens for a reason. 

                     - you are late for a bus one day.

                     - you stand on a plug. 

                     - you get an unexpected hug of someone you thought hated you.

                     - your hair decides to do that annoying flicky thing. 

You find out your best friend is moving to the other side of the world. You don't know if you should laugh or cry

The only one you can truly trust is going to leave on a plane to go and live in australia for three whole years

                                            upsides to this I can see? at the moment no :(

I don't think you realise how much you care about one person until something like this happens, she will never know how much i care about her because there aren't any words to actually describe how you can care about your best friend that doesn't sound weird or perverted.

I know it isn't the same as if you were to loose a loved one but the emotions that flow throughout of your body are the same.

You just need to remember that you are never alone in this world never, go out, have fun and spend time with people that you care about the most. don't look back in the future and regret not spending time with them when you had the chance (: