September Favourites

Hey there Ho there How do you do?

Its been a while since I last posted on here so in true Youtube style I thought that I'd do a September Favourites kind of post...maybe I've been watching too many videos on Youtube.

1. Scarves

With the arrival of autumn and the weather getting chillier, the leaves falling from the trees and getting crunched, conkers, blackberries and a whole other host of yummy autumnal goodies we delve into our piles of knitwear, boots and most importantly SCARVES.

At the last count my scarf collection came to a total of about 30 but now it may be something more like 50. Well you have to have one of every colour, pattern, print and what about silk scarves and cotton scarves never mind the ones of the woolly variety!

This time of year I can get my huge assortment out the wardrobe and experiment with new looks, accessorising and different ways of wearing a scarf.

2. The Green

As you may or may not know; on Sundays I like to have a pampering session and this week I found myself taking a trip to Lush to buy some bath bombs (my stocks were significantly low) and this is where I met The Green. The soft and crumbly bath bomb that looks a bit like a macaroon gone wrong  is a dual-layered bar of bergamot, lime and juniper berry that has been smoothly blended with coconut oil and shea butter for a silky soft bath time experience. The bath bomb/bar thingamajig is designed to smell like a freshly mown lawn but to me all I could pick out were the tones of bergamot. Bergamot is often used as an antidepressant as it helps blood flow around the body and stimulates hormone secretion. Bergamot also has some wonderful relaxation properties so if you want to follow this by rubbing yourself with bergamot body lotion and drinking bergamot and mint tea (you can buy it here) who am I to judge. 

I hold in my mortal hand essence of purest Green!

3. Dark Night Waterl...oops

I have been searching for a new lipstick for a while now and I was very specific about the shade that I was after; berry. Not too purple or too red but berry. I went into Boots and literally covered my hand with stripes of different lipsticks until I was sure that I found the exact one that I wanted.

This Rimmel lipstick- number 380 is part of the moisture renew collection so as you can imagine it is really creamy and moisturising. Unlike some of my past lipsticks I'm not worried about my lips getting too dry and I love the colour. 

4. Tutus

Yes I may be nearly 25 but I can wear a tutu if i want to and I in fact will. This cute Dolly tutu in navy is not an obvious tutu colour but I love how its already gelling so well into my wardrobe. As this is technically a 13 year old child's size I was very surprised to find that it fit but as the waist is super elasticated - why wouldn't it? 

5. Daniel Pearson 

My gigging calendar doesn't start in earnest until October....which is next week...but I started it early with a intimate little gig at the Oporto bar in Leeds courtesy on Daniel Pearson. 

5. Hotel Chocolat Carrot Cake selectors

If anyone wants to buy me these in bulk please do. These bad boys are Hotel Chocolat's flavour of the month and I would definitely have to agree. The humble carrot cake rose to popularity during wartime rationing, sugar was in very short supply but appetite for cake was not and it was therefore paramount that an alternative was found. This came in the form of bugs bunny's favourite snack: the carrot. Carrots have a high sugar content thus ideal for baking and the rest they say is history. 

Hotel Chocolat have embraced this wartime hero and by blending carrot puree and walnuts have created a chocolate that tastes every inch like you are actually eating a carrot cake - minus the crumbs.

So there we have it. My faves from this month. Is it worth re-visiting this kind of post next month or this purely self indulgence?

Let Them Eat Cake

Baking has grown massively in popularity in recent years thanks in no small part to the advent of the Great British Bake Off. This has led to people staging their own bake offs around the country, the rise of baking sites such as BakingMad.com spearheaded by Eric Lanlard and events such as The Cake and Bake Show in both Manchester and London that showcase to best in British baking.

The GBBO's James and Ryan

 

Walking around the packed Manchester Central at the 2013 Cake and Bake Show you can’t help but be awed by the impact that baking has had on us all. Baking trends have also become a lot more prominent, indeed you can hardly move for all the cupcakes. 

Tom Herbert's Masterclass at the The Cake and Bake Show Manchester

America have paved the way for the next baking trend that started it’s across the pond in 2012: Cake Pops. For those of you who are unsure what these little beauties are, think of a cake lollipop. 

More recently a trend that has been grabbing my attention is the cake push pop. This idea is very much like the ice cream push pop that swept the nation in the nineties but the cake push pop is less likely to give you a brain freeze. 

On the quest to try and make my very own cake push pops I enlisted my mother to help me trawl around every shop and supermarket in search of these elusive treats. Yet the push pop proved to be a bit too retro for most places and our search was fruitless until we stumbled across the Smarties ice cream of the exact description of what I was looking for in the bus station of all places. 

For the cake push pop to work best the plastic encasing should be see through, something that that push pop that I had was not. I had hoped that the blue card around the plastic case would come off leaving a clear shell but I was sadly mistaken so I was forced to abandon ship. I later learnt that I can order the case exact to my specifications off the internet. What a numpty. 

The popularity of baked goods has influenced many areas of life such as the media and even fashion.  Cake has recently taken a starring role in some photo-shoots and not just as a form of sustenance to keep the photographer, stylists and models going after a working day. This blog is a great example of cake being used to accentuate the models look. http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/05/03/fashion-and-cake/

At Accent Clothing (@AccentClothing) bright colours, high fashion and of course cake were the inspiration for the May look book shoot. (Baking done by yours truly)To achieve the brightness required I went through many bottles of food colouring but nothing seemed to be working, the colours weren’t vibrant enough and the cakes just tasted like the food colouring. This problem was resolved when I met colour pastes; I would only need a toothpick of the colour and not only were the cakes the right colour but also everything that I touched ended up stained.  

One of the most challenging tasks that I faced was not the making of the cakes or even the decorating of it (although that was hard) but trying to transport rainbow cupcakes and funky coloured cake pops in one piece. As I let out a sigh of relief when I delivered the cake and nothing had broken I felt like a proud mama. The cake craze is here to stay and I for one am delighted.