Chocolate inspired Cupcakes

Oh cupcakes! I think I would already have abs if it wasn’t for cupcakes. But what would life be without cake! Let’s be realistic I’m never going to give up cake and chocolate. I really need to get going with finding the perfect healthy cupcake recipe… however I doubt it will ever come close to a fluffy, soft, spongy cupcake.

As everyone knows my love of baking and cupcakes, my birthday presents this year obviously reflected this. I received a gorgeous big heavy mixing bowl, the beautiful cake stand above, multiple molds and tools as well as a cupcake book full of exciting recipes. I think one of the things I love most above cupcakes is how versatile they can be; any flavour, any combination; any toppings!

For my birthday last month the theme was cupcakes and champagne… perfection! So I spent most of the Saturday morning baking about 40 cupcakes. I hadn’t yet received my cupcake book so came up with some flavours of my own; Malteser, Oreo and Rolo. You can see them all above. They were all super simple to make but very tasty. To make them I used my simple vanilla cupcake recipe and then did the following;

Malteser Cupcake

Bash up a load of Mastesers into medium sized chunks. Mix this Malteser dust into the cake mixture. Bake the cakes as normal, then ice them with vanilla icing once cool. To finish top the cupcake with a Malteser.

Oreo Cupcake

Bake the cake  as normal, the magic happens with the icing in this cake. Bash up mini Oreos into a thin dust… make sure there are no large chunks otherwise the icing doesn’t come out of the icing tube. Once you have your Oreo dust mix into buttercream icing and pipe it onto the top of your cakes. To finish top the cakes with a mini Oreo. These cupcakes were the biggest hit with my guests.

Rolo Cupcakes

Part bake your cake mixture then after 10 minute bring the cakes out of the oven and gently push a mini rolo into the centre of each of them. Place the cakes back into the oven to finishing baking. Once cool, ice with buttercream icing. To finish top with a mini Rolo and if you have  it drizzle with caramel sauce.

What is your favourite cupcake flavour? Tell me some interesting recipes and I’ll give them a go!

Check out Jennifer's gorgeous, cute and fun lifestyle blog Infinitely Charming. Full of beauty, crafts, fitness, life and more; all with Jennifer's humorous edge on top... what's not to love.

Turning 24| My Birthday Celebrations

This week was my birthday…. possibly one of my most favourite days in the year. Although it has always been special, it used to have the shine taken off it as it was always in the middle of exam and assignment hand-in time. However now I have finished university I think that my birthday is perfectly placed in the year. It is kind of halfway through the year, so not near Christmas and New Year and overlooked or during the summer so is favoured for Summer Holidays.

I am currently snuggled up on the couch nursing a tiny hangover after celebrating my 24th birthday last night with my boyfriend and closest friends. Matt and I spent Saturday morning baking and cooking ready for everyone to arrive. I made three flavours of cupcake; Oreo, Malteser and Rolo, you can see pictures of my handy work above. Matt made homemade pizzas and potato wedges for dinner… a big carb dinner, perfect to line our stomachs for all the fizzy cocktails.

After getting glammed up, my friends and I all sat around and played the usual drinking games, before heading off into town for more cocktails and some dancing. I haven’t been out partying in my new hometown much and it’s definitely a big change from my old favourite drinking establishments in Newcastle, but we made the most of it. It was actually great to go out to places that weren’t full of idiots and posers. To be able to go out and not worry about what you look like, but rather go out let your hair down and dance like a loon with your friends. We stayed out until closing time, then went back to our apartment and made more pizzas and caught up with The Voice before all passing out. Overall it was a perfect night and a great way to celebrate my birthday. So thank-you to all my gorgeous friends for travelling hundred of miles to visit me, my family for all the love you share with me and my boy for spoiling me like he does everyday.

What’s your preferred way to spend your birthday? A night with the girls, a dinner with family or a weeks worth of celebrations like me (might as well make the most of it!)

Don't forget to check out my blogger of the week Rhiannon from The Barbelle. If you enjoy my fitness and health posts you will love her blog. It is crammed full of fitspiration!

Easter Weekend and a new home

With the sun shining, the none existent snow and blue skies you would think that spring had arrived here in the Lake District. Technically it has but the fact that I am still wearing my penguin mittens and bobble hat everyday makes the long spring afternoons feel a million miles away. Fingers crossed that April brings us temperatures above 2c!

I've had a very busy few days as this weekend was moving in day for me. Finally my boyfriend Matt has landed himself a job on the better side of the country (sorry you Eastern readers) and after nine long months of a long distance relationship we will finally be living in the same place. To make me even happier we have the most gorgeous apartment in town with spectacular views over the river.

So far so good with the moving in process; we even managed to construct a bed together with no arguments! Although our own bed which he constructed without my supervision did collapse at 6 in the morning with us both on it, so one minor mishap! We had our first visitors yesterday and our second lot today, I think our location makes us very popular for those wanting to visit the lakes… how convenient of us! We currently don't have all the furniture we need so expect a lot of interior design inspired posts coming up. I may even film a flat tour once everything is out of boxes and looks a bit more like home.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend with your family and treat yourself to some chocolate eggs! What are your plans for the weekend? 

Goodbye Google Reader| Where else can you find me

 

I assume you all know already that Google Reader is no more come July, so whether you use it to read blogs currently or not I’m sure it will have a huge impact on some people’s blogging. The major worry for many bloggers is that Google Friend Connect (GFC) may also disappear as a consequence. So before we all loose touch with each other how about we connect on different platforms and adapt to new ways to catching up with our favourite blogs. I have demonstrated below the other social media platforms that I am alive and well on, if you would like to follow me. I obviously don’t want to loose contact with you so please, please, please leave your social media links in a comment below and I will follow you all… lets share the love!

Bloglovin’

Bloglovin’ has had a very busy day as bloggers scramble to add their favourite blogs asap. I have seen such a huge increase over today that my blog has become number 33 in the Up and Coming Personal blogs… made my day! It seems to be the platform of choice for many.

Follow me here.

 

Twitter

Twitter is actually one of my favourite platform for reading blog posts, as it is instant and I am always on it. Yes you have to click through to a persons blog and everything isn’t in one place, but I very often favour peoples tweets then go through them at a later date to check out their recent posts.

Follow me here.

 

YouTube

Not so much of a blog following platform but still a social media platform. I am very new to YouTube and am slowly but surely working on it, so if you fancy checking out my videos and subscribing then go ahead.

Subscribe to my channel here.

 

Pinterest

A very different and interesting platform. I could spend hours looking at all the pretty and inspirational picture on Pinterest. It is great for fitness motivation also. I really need to work on my boards but plan on doing so soon.

Follow me here.

 

Hello Cotton

This is a relatively new platform for me, and rivals Bloglovin’ It allows you to follow your favourite blogs all in one place, but is a bit more magazine like than Bloglovin’, which appeals to many.

Follow me here.

 

She Said Beauty

A completely new platform for me, I literally signed up a few minutes ago, so I’m unsure to what it is like, but first impressions are good. Like Hello cotton is is a bit more magazine like with different sections etc. I also allows you to add all your social media widgets which i like

Follow me here.

 

Google+

This again is completely new to me, I have played around with it in the past but I find it quite hard to navigate and am a bit unsure of it. This is the platform that Google wans us to all start using but its yet to take off in the way that they had hoped.

Add me to your circle here.

 

Which one is your favourite platform for keeping in touch? Please leave your social media links in the box below and I will follow you all on all of the sites. I need to make sure that I do not loose touch with my favourite bloggers!

The Days Gone By| Feb to March

It feels like forever since I wrote one of these posts, so I thought I would let you all know what I’ve been up to over the past month.

 

Valentine's Dinner- As you will know from my Valentines Day post, this year Matt and I decided to stay in and have an evening to ourselves. To make it special I cooked dinner (seems I never cook), and I’m happy to say I never gave him food poisoning so I would say it was a success.

Hart of Dixie- I am a little bit obsessed with this programme, and I know a few of you are also. If you loved Rachel Bilson in the OC you will love her even more in this…She is my girl crush!

Ebaying- I have been going mad on ebay this past month. I have so far sold about 40 items of clothing and made about £200. I think the people at the Post Office are sick of the sight of me, but it's great to get rid of my fat clothes and get some money for some new ones!

Theme Hospital- After seeing all the talk of the relaunch of SimCity, it had me wishing that Theme Hospital would be relauched also. So after a long search online I found out how to get the game to work on newer operating systems. You can see more info here if you are interested.

My New Apartment- Matt and I have signed for a new apartment and I am so so so excited! We will finally be living together again after 9 months of long distance, and we will be living in a building I have had my heart set on so I couldn’t be happier! Expect lots of posts about interiors, furniture and pictures of my new apartment in the coming months!

Confused.com- This past week, thanks to my blogger friend Jamie, who writes the Zombie Fitness Blog, I was featured on Confused.com. The article was about their top fitness tips from favourite fitness bloggers, so I was honoured to be featured.

Personal Fitspiration- As I was sorting through my pictures on my laptop this past week (blogger problems) I came across some bikini pictures of me from 5 years ago and was amazed at my flat stomach! I think I’m going to print out the picture and put it by my treadmill as some fitspiration!

Matts Birthday- My boy turned 27 last week so we were obviously out celebrating. We went for some food and plenty of drinks in Leeds last weekend, and I definitely paid for it the next day!

Hangover Breakfast- The second hangover of the month, this time from meeting up with my friend whom I moved to France with. We haven’t met up in about 6 months, so we went out for a few quiet drinks in Jesmond, Newcastle, which turned into playing drunken darts at my friends house till 2 in the morning. It is safe to say I was very thankful for this breakfast in the morning.

Fitness Clothes Haul- I finally went and bought some new workout clothes! My road running trainers are a little tired and have given me a sore foot this past week, so I went and bought these gorgeous new pink ones, along with new leggings and bras!

Mothers Day Afternoon Tea- As today is Mothers Day I have spent the day with my gorgeous Mother Bar. We went for a run on the fells this morning, had some laugh when trying to complete some hill sprints, and treated ourselves with homemade afternoon tea.

Froggy’s- The pond in my mum’s garden is currently home to hundreds of little frogs! We went up this afternoon to watch them all.

 

Do you love Hart of Dixie as much as I do? Have you ever made money from Ebay? What have you been up to over the past month? Anything exciting?

Snow Day| A Winter Walk

 

So if you haven’t noticed…. I’m pretty sure you have seems you have eyes and everyone keeps going on about it… it snowed!! I love snow! Loads! I turn to an infant state of mind as soon as the first snow flake lands on the ground. However I have been sulking over the past couple of days as you southerners have been steeling all the snow! We haven't seen any over the past couple of days in the Lake District. The snow you can see in the pictures above is the remnants of the snow we had at the beginning of the week. So we don't have lots of fresh powder, just a lot of icy crunchy snow; still enough to take pretty pictures and to go sledging.

Matt and I went for a nice long walk with my two daft dogs this morning. The dogs love it! They spent most of the time rolling around in it, eating it and chasing snowballs or kids that were sledging. As I mentioned it was very icy, so much so that Matt managed to slip and fall down a hill which was very funny.. not to him, but for me it was.

I’m hoping that it will snow some more tonight then we can go sledging tomorrow! So I will be sleeping with my fingers crossed and one eye peeping out the window waiting on that first snowflake!

I hope you made the most of the snow, if you were lucky enough to get some. Has anyone gone sledging or made some snowmen over the past couple of days?