Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Sweet Potato Chips!

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Although this is not a full vegetarian meal, I wanted to include this in my venture into vegetarian foods. Plus I am pretty sure that I could eat a whole bowl of them and my tummy would be very happy =D

I also made a quick garlic mayonnaise dip to go with these. It consists of mayonnaise, garlic paste, a wee touch of salt and a wee bit of lemon juice. Just go with your taste and I suppose for a kick you could add some paprika or other spices.

The sweet potatoes were cut up into thin strips after I peeled them. In a bowl add in some olive oil, salt, pepper and other spices. We added cayenne pepper and it added a kick to them!

After mixing all of the ingredients together, use a slotted spoon to get rid of the excess oil and add them to a baking tray. Put them in an oven, heated to 220 and bake them for 10-15 mins, turn the chips over and bake again until the chips are cooked.

I haven’t yet figured out how to get them crispy so any tips would be super helpful!

Labels: 101 things in 1001 days, vegetarian | 0 comments

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Music cake and Cocktail Cupcakes

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So for my flatmates birthday this year I was very busy during the weekend of his birthday with 2 ceilighs in the space of 2 days, very tiring! Therefore I was super rushed with these cakes!

Since he has been into making cocktails and into music I wanted to incorporate them into his cake. I saw some really ace cocktail cupcakes so I got some straws and cocktail umbrellas to try and make them into cocktails. I ended up losing my piping bags so I just put on the icing in a basic way and didn't have time to make all of the fondant toppers but I did make a couple of fondant limes!

I only made 9 cupcakes because I had made a square cake as well. I decided to do a plain design but with the music to happy birthday around the sides of the cake:



Happy



Birthday to You...Happy



        

Birthday To You...Happy Birthday To Youuu..

 

Happy Birthday To You!



  

 As a wee extra surprise I decided to make the cake batter tie dye using 5 different colours, although the red and the pink did turn out similar. I forgot to take pictures of the batter before putting the cakes in the oven but this is how they turned out:



Excuse the crumbs!



I didn't get a picture of the cake when it was cut but here's how the cupcakes turned out:



This one turned out a little bit fuzzy but you get the idea!

Doing tie dye in a cake is really fun and looks super awesome once you cut into the cake! I just poured the batter in different corners and the centre of the baking tin, got a spatula and swirled it around a wee bit to make a pattern =) Since the cupcakes are a lot smaller, just layer the different colours of batter in the cupcake liners! 

Labels: birthday, cake, cupcakes | 5 comments

Monday, 14 May 2012

How to Make Marshmallow Fondant (Ellen Style!)

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So, most of the cakes that I make have the same icing for each of them and so I thought I would do a tutorial on how to make it. I personally think that the Marshmallow fondant tastes a lot better than the normal icing hence why I make it!

Okay so what you will need to make this:

Main ingredient in this is marshmallows and I usually just get the pink and white ones, powdered icing sugar, a microwavable bowl, butter for greasing, a wee bit of water, food colourings if desired, a spoon and although it is not shown here some cling film.

Before I start always remember to grease the bowl with butter, the spoon and anything else coming into contact with the marshmallows. Once they are melted they will stick onto everything! Many times I have tried kneading the sugar into the melted marshmallows without greasing my hands and not being able to touch anything! Greased up bowl:

Okay I don't actually measure anything when I make this; generally the idea is just add more sugar until it becomes the consistency that you want.

Put the marshmallows into the greased bowl first. If you are after white icing then obviously separate the white and pink marshmallows and add a wee touch of water, usually about a tablespoon.

I microwave them in sections of 30 seconds at the highest setting just so that they don't burn and once they are all melted this is the time to add the food colouring if you are making a lot of one colour. It is a lot easier to add it now rather than trying to knead it in once the fondant is made, and a lot less messy! I used blue icing because I was wanted to cover my flatmates cake blue.



Before colourings



After colourings

Now is the more time consuming and boring part with the adding of the icing sugar. Sift it into the bowl to avoid lumps but every so often stir it in with the greased spoon, otherwise there will be so much icing sugar and your kitchen will look very white! After a while it should look like very sticky and harder to stir but you just have to keep going! I haven't ever used a whisk to make any of my icings though it would probably be a lot easier! I do it by hand mainly because then I can feel the texture while making it. Soon it will look like this:

The first couple of times that I tried this many recipes said to make a pile of icing sugar onto a kitchen worktop and add the melted marshmallows and knead. I don't tend to do this anymore for several reasons. Getting melted marshmallows on your hands can be very frustrating! Adding not enough or too much icing sugar can be annoying and having generally your kitchen top looks very very messy afterwards! So I add the sugar in the same bowl.

So just keep adding sugar to the bowl:

Once it gets to the stage where the icing is coming away from the bowl then it is ready. You can use your spoon or your hands to knead the icing but I don't usually think that it is completely necessary at this point. Now get a big bit of cling film and its time to wrap up the icing! I usually have some leftover icing in the bowl so instead of throwing it out I add it with the icing into the cling film as it saves the icing from sticking to the cling film too much:

Now I usually make the icing the night before and will use it the next day for cake. It tends to settle a bit and after a few hours so a lot easier to knead and use. If you have any icing left over once you use it, you just need to wrap it up with cling film again and keep it in a dry place. I usually use it within a month so I would say that it is usually safe to use within the month.

I hope that if you make it, it turns out well! =D

Labels: how to, marshmallow fondant | 3 comments

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

101 in 1001 update

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Okay so dissertation is all done, bounded and handed in (wooohooo!) and so all I need to do is one exam and then my university life will be all over! =D Super excited!

I have also been keeping up with my 101 list so here is a wee update!

-21. Have £1000 into my savings account before summer 2012- Finally got my savings up which is such a nice feeling to have a wee bit of financial securtiy =D

-22. Manage to get a job in America this summer- Super excited about this mainly because I want to be able to go on a shopping spree at the end of my America trip and the money would be very useful =P

-23. Put £20 into savings for every goal completed- I can tell this one is going to be a tough goal mainly because any extra money that I have I prefer to spend on shoes and dresses and other essentials =P but so far so good =D

-30. Watch at least 100 movies that I have not seen yet-
-Scary Movie 3

I have seen the first couple and this was pretty much the same sort of cheesy and spoofyness but it was still a fun one to watch! Plus Charlie Sheen and Leslie Nielsen were in it which was a surprise =D









-Fight Club

I was excited to finally watch this since is so famous but I am not sure what I felt about it. Very strange movie! Plus I think that I would be absolutely terrible in a fight club!









-Small Time Crooks

I ended up watching this just because it was on BBC Iplayer. It was a bit of a 'spoof' crime movie which was quite joyful to watch! Hugh Grant played a role in it but as a 'bad' guy which also was a nice surprise!









-Father of the Bride 2

I hadn't seen the first Father of the Bride but I may end up watching it after seeing the 2nd one. It portrays a father who has to get used to the idea of becoming a grandfather with a light hearted comedy side to it.









-The Avengers

Although I didn't see this in 3D it was still amazing! Such a good movie with lots of giggly parts plus well Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man was awesome =P
Maybe I will go see it in 3D to see if it is a lot better!









-Thor

I saw this after the Avengers and although it wasn't as awesome, it was still pretty ace!










-The Inbetween

I am a fan of the TV show and so was looking forward to see this and I thought that this was better than the show. Good amount of funny, sun, alcohol plus a happy ending, what else do people want on a holiday?! =P









29. Read at least 50 new books- Due to university work I haven't managed to read any books for pleasure and the books I do have to read are mainly skimmed through in order to just do research so when I finished my dissertation I took my first fiction book to work with me. It is called 'The House Husband' by Owen Whittaker.

 I got it at a charity shop, mainly because of the bright cover! The book itself was okay, one of those books that you can read just to pass the time (which helps at work!) and the storyline was pretty standard but nothing to right home about!

Labels: 101 things in 1001 days | 0 comments