Chocolate Cherry Cola Cupcakes

So I have made these scrumptious Chocolate cupcakes with cherries and topped with a spicy cola frost in and although sounding a bit strange the of all flavours create a nice flavour that isn't to sweet either. This recipe makes 14 Large cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake Base:

175g Butter

225g Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

100g Self-Raising Flour

30g Cocoa powder

A Jar of Cocktail cherries (glace cherries can be used)

A few Drops of Cola Flavouring by Foodie Flavours

Butter-cream:

120g Butter

500g Icing Sugar

1tsp Milk

1tsp Cola Flavoring by Foodie Flavours

1. Preheat the oven to 180c / 350of / gas 4.

2. Mix the butter and sugar together in a bowl till light and creamy. Afterwards adding flour and eggs gradually so they don't separate. Make sure you add lots of air while adding the ingridents. This mixture should end up looking a bit like this...

 3.  The next step is to add the coca powder into the mix to get the chocolate taste.

 4. You then want to cut most of the cherries into quarters making sure you have 16 left over these will be used later. Mix the quartered cherries into the mix.

5.  The put the mixture into the cases. I use an Ice-cream scoop for this as I find it a good way to put mixture into a bowl  also add the cola flavouring. I like this particular one as it has a nice spicy flavour to it that makes the cake a bit less sweet and nicer to eat.

6. Now get the rest of the cherries and put each one into the centre of the cake as these will later fall and create a nice middle to your cake. Then put them in the oven.

Its now time to make the butter-cream!

1. Add the softened  butter and mix ( I would strongly recommend at least a hand whisk for this as  as it gets more air into the butter-cream so a nicer taste forms. 

2. Gradually add the icing sugar into the mix as adding it all at once will create an icing sugar storm in your kitchen.

3. Add milk

4. Once you have put the mixed everything together you can put the icing on the cake. I have used a star-shaped nozzle and piping bag but you can use what ever you choose just make sure you don't put to heavy a layer of butter-cream on your cake as this will ruin the flavour.

5. I have decorated my cakes using red crystals and a little straw because of the coca cola aspect.

Bakes and Cakes Show Haul

On Saturday I went to the Bakes and cakes show (not the cakes and bakes show but yeah the names are way too similar). This was a show hosted by BBC Good Food which meant there were loads of special guests like Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. I learnt a lot about cake making methods and baking tips from many influential people. For example did you know that you can make your own Vanilla essence by adding vanilla pods to vodka and leaving it for a few months and also the little bottles of vanilla essence you buy in shops hasn't actually got vanilla in its just artificial flavouring. I really wanted to take photos but I stupidly forgot my camera chip at home which is a shame because some of the competition cakes were truly amazing. I also picked up many little things from the amazing selection of stores they had there. Links Below.

Firstly these 3 little Jam pots from the company 'thelittlemarmalade.com'. So unfortunately they only sell small pots for £1.50 each. Although rather pricey for the amount the flavour combinations were very interesting and I come from a very jam loving family. So I picked up the flavours Fig and lavender, Strawberry and Rose, and Plum and Chamomile.

I also bought this really nice striped ribbon as i thought it would look really nice on top of some brown paper for my Christmas presents and give a really nice vintage look. They had and amazing range of ribbons and they all looked really nice. This is from a company called Bertie's Bows and it cost me £1.95

This was probably my most exciting purchase because if you have seen my earlier post on bubble tea you'll know I love it so when I stumbled upon this small stall selling Green Apple and Blueberry Popping Boba I was so happy. For those who don't know, popping boba are little balls filled with juice held together by a skin made from a special type of seaweed. These taste amazing and have a very strong flavour that is scrumptious. I bought these for £2.50 a pack and come in five flavours Blueberry, Green Apple, Strawberry, Lychee and Passion fruit.

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This food flavouring came from an amazing company called 'Foodie Flavours' and have 48 different flavours, ranging from Champagne to passion fruit to Xmas pudding. This specific bottle cost me £3.50 and I love it the Cola flavour is mixed with spices to create a arm sweet smell. I am planning to use this in a chocolate cupcake with cherry jam in the middle and Cola butter-cream.

Lastly theese are probally the weirdest things and i'm still not sure I complelty understand them but there called 'Hot and Cold Sweets' and they have been made half and half with sugar that is heat reflecting and sugar that is heat absorbing then creating a hot and cold sensation in your mouth. I got theese for a friend as a christmas present as they were £5 and a bit expensive just to buy for myself. They are also diabetic.

http://thelittlemarmalade.co.uk/

http://www.bertiesbows.co.uk/

http://popaball.co.uk/collections/all

http://www.foodieflavours.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FlavourSenseNation

Autumn/Winter Skincare Picks

Autumn Beauty Picks

So With the coming months, new and exciting limited edition products come out for those amazing warm spice smells to enter your life and I have just picked a few of my favorites. 

1. Pumpkin Vanilla Bean Face Mask

 £4.47 Etsy 

This Company on Etsy have had great reviews and there creams sound amazing and they're quite cheap, I cant wait to try this Pumpkin,Vanilla face mask out.

2. Northern Lights Bath Bomb

£3.50 lush

Lush has come out with a great new range of bath bombs and products this year for Halloween and Christmas and this northern lights bath bomb is amazing. The cylinder shape of it means you can move the bath bomb along the water which is great, also there is an amazing colour explosion inside.

3. Pumpkin Pecan Waffles Anti Bacterial Gel

$1.75 Bath and body works

If you don't know bath and body works they are an amazing american company with the most spectacular range of anti bacterial gels that I've ever seen and although american their products can be bought on amazon. I just thought this Pumpkin Pecan Waffles gel sounds good enough to eat.

4. Candied Apple Shower Gel

£4.00 Bodyshop 

So this year I'm excited to say Bodyshop have brought out a new Christmas collection , and as I had seen the frosted cranberry and candied ginger for a few years now when I saw these apple scented products in the shop yesterday I was overjoyed and they smell amazing just like like fresh apples.

5. Amber and Lavender Body Lotion

£38.00 Jo Malone 

I have sampled Jo Malone Products a few times and they always seem to be great and as much as I love them they are sadly out of my price range so I most likely wont be buying them unless I win the lottery or something...

6. Body Scrub in Cranberry and Honey 

£2.65 Original Source 

I really like the smells of original source and their products are quite natural which is always a good thing. Also they are very cheap and easy to buy in local supermarkets.

What are you looking forward to in the next few months?

My Top 10 songs: October 2014

So this is what my favourite songs to listen to at the moment I hope you like them as much as I do and just to say I like many different music genre's from Heavy rock to quite light pop/R& B. So in no particular order...

1. My body - Young the Giant
2.  Ugly Heart - G.R.L
3.  Chariot - Gavin DeGraw
4. Take Me To Church - Hozier
5. Changing - Sigma ft Paloma Faith
6.  Blame It On Me -  Geprge Ezra
7. Troye Sivan - Happy Little Pill
8. Step - Vampire Weekend
9. Suitcase - The Bulletproof Bomb
10.  Recover - CVRCHES

Comment below what your favourtie songs of the moment are...

Little Bargains: Semptember

Hello Everyone! I have recently been having cheap and small shopping trips to car boot sales, table top sales and so on... This means I have started to have a number of objects that I have bought and I would really like to share them with you to see what bargains you can get. 

 This is a Sally Hansen nail varnish that picked up in the colour Sea for 50p which i thought was a Bargain even though Sally Hansen nail varnishes aren't ridiculously expensive it was still an amazing price, I got this at a car boot sale near Norfolk but probably wont be wearing it till the summer as its a little to light for autumn I feel.

I then picked this L'oreal Lumi Magic liquid foundation in Rose Pearl up for £1 (rrp £10.99). I was imensly happy with this as it was brand new a looks amazing on my skin. This came from a local charity table top sale.

This amazing mug was a great find as I had for ages been seeing it in Urban Outfitters for about £10 but as a stroke of luck stumbled upon it at a car boot sale for £1 and its perfect condition. This mug is perfect for a biscuit dunker like myself.

So I found this amazing charity shop just outside of Camden Road station that do amazing little things at great prices and the lady in there gave me and my friends 50% student discount which clinched the deal for me. So I got these 72 little felt reindeer pegs for £1 even though the lady said 50p. I will probably use them to make Christmas cards or something with but I just thought they were adorable.

Bobbi Brown is one of those make up companies that I've always seen but have been really expensive. I remember when I was younger seeing there gel eyeliner and really wanting it but obviously they were rather high on the price spectrum. So today when I found this Bobbi Brown cream eyeshadow for 50p! I was over the moon. I then went home and looked up the rrp and it's £19! I cant believe the deal I got on this. The colour is Pink Bellini and just gives a nice natural shimmer to your eyes which I quite like.

Finally I picked up this Topshop eyeshadow in Topshop itself for only 50p! I was out standed by the discount Topshop and given as the original price was £8-£9.I also picked up some tweezers for £1 down from £4. I always think Topshop sale is worth keeping an eye on even online sometimes you can pick up a bargain although I think its a lot about timing.