Arrivederci UK, Buongiorno Italia!

I'm off to Italy tomorrow for five whole weeks.

Well, actually I fly to Nice, France and am spending the night alone in a hostel (scary) then heading to Italy on Sunday. I have met three other girls online who are going to the same camp orientation as me and I'm meeting them to get the train on Sunday so it's only tomorrow I have to get through alone.

I'm then going to be sent around the country to teach in camps and stay with host families, I hope to learn some Italian too.

I do plan to travel at the end and definitely want to visit Venice, Florence and Rome and I may meet some lovely people at camp who want to come with me.

I'm so excited but the fear that I've never done anything like this alone before is setting in.

I have got a hiking backpack and have packed extremely light so will have to wash as I go but shouldn't get annoyed by the amount of luggage I'm lugging round cities.

I'm expecting to spend most days with messy, curly hair and little make up but at least I don't know anyone so it won't matter!

I'm looking forward to lots of this....

Wish me luck, I'll keep in touch when I can.

Afternoon Tea for Three

Yesterday I invited Ivy and Emmaonwheels round for afternoon tea. I made strawberry scones and sandwiches, Emma made chocolate orange cookies and Ivy made Raspberry Pie Cupcakes. Afternoon Tea turned out being a day of eating, movie watching and playing on the Wii- Lovely!

Strawberry Scones

enough for three?

New Cake Stand!

Photography

I was playing with my Dad's camera in the sun the other day and these are a few abstract shots I took.

Chicken in motion!

The sky reflected in the bonnet of my car.

Chocolate Orange Bubble Wrap Cupcakes!

After admitting i'm bad at baking sometimes I had a go today and although I still didn't get the icing quite right (I think it was too warm) the cupcakes turned out delicious! When I get it right they're really good I think I just need to concentrate and focus.


I stumbled across this on The Lone Baker's site yesterday and was eager to try it out. I made the decorations with Dark Chocolate with Orange and Spices. I then used a trusty chocolate cupcake recipe but added orange and they turned out almost Brownie-like with a subtle taste of orange. The small blob of icing and bitter chocolate were the perfect combination in my opinion!


The only thing I would have changed, apart from the icing being a little too sloppy, is that I would have tempered the chocolate as the link said to prevent the matt white colour you get when you melt chocolate.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes


115g/4oz Butter or Margarine
115g/4oz Caster Sugar
2 Eggs, beaten
85g/3oz Self-raising Flour
25g/1oz Cocoa Powder
Rind and Juice of half a large orange
Icing-
2oz Butter
4oz Icing Sugar
1tbsp milk


Preheat the oven at 180c
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Gradually add the eggs, beating well
Sift in the flour and cocoa powder
Add the orange rind and juice
Spoon the mixture into paper cases
Cook in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes
To make the icing, put butter and icing sugar in a bowl and mix well, adding the milk
Pipe icing onto cakes when cool and add a piece of bubble wrap chocolate!


Enjoy!

Confession: I'm Bad at Baking!

I have been hiding something from the people of this blog world (and others!), I've come to the realisation that I'm actually pretty bad at baking.


Last summer I was successful at baking a few batches of cakes after years of making silly mistakes due to not following recipes properly or paying much attention generally. Anyway, so after lots of compliments (especially from the Boyfriend's family- thanks for that!), my confidence was up and I began baking more often and mistakes started to appear again.


There was the time at uni I made a banana bread under the grill instead of the oven, the countless sloppy attempts at making the perfect buttercream and the recurring problem of things sticking to the greaseproof paper! 


A few weeks ago I decided to challenge myself by trying to make almond macaroons until I realised it was meringue based, something I'd never attempted before, and it failed pretty badly. The texture of the egg whites was soo wrong and when I piped them onto the baking sheets they just formed a huge puddle and didn't bake very well either. I took these photos at the time but then wimped out of being honest on this blog about what happened.

Not quite right!

Then when I was babysitting last week, my 10 year old neighbour and I attempted to make swiss roll from his mum's cookbook, again I failed to realise the meringue like recipe and it came out flat and very very stuck to the paper. The boys ate it anyway but I was disappointed. To remedy it we made cupcakes but as it was a different recipe than I was used to I ended up making 8 muffin sized cakes from a recipe to make 18! Ultimate fail.

Today, putting last week behind me, I decided to fulfill my craving for chocolate flapjacks by baking some. All looked well when they came out of the oven until I realised they were massively stuck to the foil lining and I ended up with flapjack tops and what can only be described as cereal...

Not what it looks like in the book!

After this disappointment (which has happened before!) I have decided to come clean-

  I'm not very good at baking, sometimes it works out, sometimes I work hard to make it work but sometimes I'm just rubbish and i'm going to be honest from now on and not just post the exceptions!

That feels better. :)

If anyone would like to suggest why I have a sticking problem please let me know. I've tried greaseproof paper with butter and oil separately and today tried foil and butter.

Is there a solution?

Listography- Top 5 Kids Movies

As a lover of kids movies for nostalgia and general feel-good factor this listography is easy!

1. Toy Story 1/2/3

Ok, so I cheated and grouped all 3 movies together but they are amazing! Although I don't think Toy Story 3 really counts as a 'kids movie' as part of the generation who adored the first one, the second and third were made for us!

2. Monsters Inc.

Another movie I loved in late childhood/ teenage-hood. Boo is so cute.

3. Cinderella

My all-time favourite movie as a child, a Disney classic. I used to watch it daily and even wore my mum's wedding dress to a fancy dress day at school as the fairy godmother.

4. Finding Nemo

Dory is the funniest character ever written! 'Yes I'm a natural blue'

5. Beauty and the Beast

Another Disney classic I loved as a child. Who doesn't love a talking teapot, candlestick and clock and the very strange Gaston!

Oh I would love to replace my Disney videos with the new DVDs if they weren't so expensive.

Too Busy having FUN!

Again, I apologise for my absence. I have literally been too busy to blog and even to eat proper meals.
Here is the highlights of what I have been up to. Also, apologies for the overload of posts today (Yes I did write 3 posts at once)!


19th July- Got the train to Birmingham with my Uni flatmate to visit someone on our course for a night out at Subway City. Had fun dancing at the 90's night and playing on Mario Kart on the Playstation 1.


20th July- After staying at said friend's house we had a delicious meal at Frankie&Benny's before getting the train home. Mmm blue cheese pizza.


22nd July- Got my 55litre backpack for Italy and it's purple!


23rd July- Went to see the new Harry Potter movie with Dad and very much enjoyed it. Then went to see Bizzle at EmmaonWheels' house where we created a very strange Sims 3 family (more about that on Bizzle's blog)!


26th July- Went to Alton Towers with the boys next door (as part of being paid to babysit) and the boyfriend. Had a brilliant (/tiring) day and managed to go on 'The Big Five'- Oblivion, Thirteen (twice), Rita, Air and Nemesis (twice). The 10 year old very much enjoyed his first roller coaster experience and we heard all about his favourite parts of the day!


27th July- Babysitting again, went to Nantwich show and enjoyed a free buffet lunch alongside Gino DeCampo and James Martin! We also saw some strange looking chickens and pigeons...

28th July- Made some delicious cherry, strawberry and blueberry smoothies and went swimming with Ivy.

29th July- Had a productive shopping trip with the boyfriend for shorts, pyjamas, a sun hat, some trainers and bug spray! Then went for a another meal at the restaurant with the strange Gnocchi because I was craving the delicious Salmon.


30th July- went to Nantwich with the parents and bought some vegetarian black pudding, posh chocolate and delicious brownies from the market, along with this guy.....

I enjoyed melting him!

This went along with working at weekends and relaxing. I also found this plant that I really like in the Boyfriend's garden.

Anyone know what it is?