Fashion question.

I am a young lady who is mildly into fashion. I mean I don't really follow trends, unless I happen to chose something that is in fashion at the time. And I don't go out to get new clothes unless I really have to. In other words, I'm not a slave to fashion. I do however like going to the shops, when it's absolutely necessary, and I only get what I can afford, but I do happen to like the look of expensive things. You know when you walk into a clothes shop and you see something and think "Ooo, that looks nice!", then you look at the price tag and think "Wow, that's expensive.", and walk away slowly. Yeah, well that seems to happen to me quite a bit. For years, actually.

Anyway, that was just the introduction, just so you know my slant on fashion, before I tell you my question. The question revolves around what happened to me yesterday evening, while I was out. I was at a till in a supermarket, when the checkout girl said she liked my necklace, which was new. I was flattered. Then she asked where I got it from, and I told her, although I had to correct myself, as I'm not the best at remembering where I bought things from. I then said that my jumper was new as well, and that I got it as I wanted warmer clothes because it's getting colder outside.

This was all fine, however I can't seem to understand how she noticed the necklace but not the jumper. I was far more proud to be wearing the jumper, than I was wearing the necklace. The necklace was just an accessory, the jumper however struck me as being completely different to what I would normally wear. I mean it was much thicker than the sort of jumpers I have been wearing the last few years, and also was a lot longer too.

My fashion question to you lot is: How come she noticed the necklace, but not the jumper?

All thoughts on this are welcome. I'm interested to see what you lot come up with.

Ss1. x

Giles Coren - a year ago.

So today - 20.10.11 - it's been a year since I met Giles Coren. And how could I just let the day go by without blogging about it? That would be absurd! So, as a special little bloggin' treat for you guys, I have a pic of him from when I met him a year ago to show you.

Aww - that's all I can say. Aww.

I swear I'll never forget meeting him. He's so nice, and so funny. And he's a total idol of mine. And what the hell... just go buy his book - Anger Management for Beginners - it's such a funny book. Funny that I should be reading that tonight - at the one year on point. Estate Agents. That was an awesome chapter. Awesome.

Bye now. Ss1. xxx

A Follower's Question.

So, another blog post coming atcha. This time I shall be answering A Follower's Question. Maybe that's what I should call this thing I'm planning to do each week. Every week, possibly more, I shall ask my followers on Twitter what they think I should write about, and I shall word it like a question. This idea came about by a tweet I got from @HollyBellMummy on Twitter. Who was a contestant on this year's Great British Bake Off. I can't thank her enough for giving me this idea. So thank you times 1000. Or times infinity. Yeah, that sounds better.

This week's Question comes from @tearose68. There were other people who gave me questions, but her's stood out the most to me. Next week I'll try and use someone else's. The question of her's that I am going to use this time is...

Do you have a childhood Christmas memory?

I do, as it happens. Well, I have several. But I guess I should pick my favourite one. I'd say, it either has to be when I got a game for Christmas, and it was one I got really excited about. When I say game, I mean like a video game. I don't want to say what exact game it was, but it was very special to me at the time. The other Christmas memory I remember very well, was when I was at an after school club, when I used to go to Primary School, and I remember playing indoors, then someone shouted or said "It's snowing!" or "Look, it's a blizzard!". Then a few of the kids asked whether they could go outside in it, and the teacher let them. I went out in it as well, and my god was it snowing hard that afternoon! Some of the kids made a snowman, but I just stood out there, or possibly ran about, and tried to catch snowflakes in my mouth. It was an amazing experience.

Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment telling me what you thought of my childhood Christmas memories.

Ss1. x

Dark pink or red?!

So, as you may already know, from reading my tweets yesterday, I bought a new lipstick. When I bought it I thought it was dark pink, but now in the daylight I thought it looked red. Someone please tell me which one it is. I'm so confused.

Just so you know, this is my actual lipstick on a piece of paper, and the lips are the shape of mine, created by me basically pressing my lips up against a piece of paper.

I hope someone can clear this up for me. Please leave a comment telling me which colour you think it is. Thanks!

Ss1. x

I've BAKED something!!!

So, after literally months of waiting to get to try and bake in the kitchen, because of lack of space on the benches, and because I wanted someone there to guide me while I baked something, I have finally baked something!

Now, I know you're all wondering what it is that I've baked, and I'll tell you, it's not an obvious first choice for someone like me, who hasn't baked anything since they were at high school. You may be thinking 'I bet she tried cupcakes, or maybe a muffin, or maybe a cake.'. But no. I chose this ages ago, from The Great British Book of Baking, because one day, a few months ago, I was looking through it, and one of the recipes just seemed to be perfect for me. It sounded fairly easy to do, and it's something that I like to eat. It is...

Petticoat Tails! See, not obvious. This is great for me, as it's in the Biscuits and Teatime Treats section of the book, which happens to be the first section in the book. And if you know me, and what I like, you'll know that I love tea, and biscuits. So it's like my ideal recipe to try first. Also, since I was a kid, I remember at Christmas my mum always bought 'all butter Scottish shortbread petticoat tails' by Walkers, I think.

While I made it, very late last night, with my companion/mentor by my side, I took pictures at each little stage of the baking process. And I thought, hey, why not include most of them in this blog post? So that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Step 1:

Put 150g of unsalted butter (I used Flora margarine) and 40g of icing sugar into a big mixing bowl, and beat it up using a wooden spoon (which I used) or an electric whisk, or mixer. The recipe says to do it until it's light and creamy.

As you can see, the next step will obviously involve using a sieve.

Step 2:

Put 200g of plain flour, and 50g of cornflour into the sieve, a little bit at a time, and use a metal spoon (this is what my mentor/companion told me to do) to push it through the sieve into the mixing bowl. Then use your hands (this is what I did) to bring the mixture together.

This is just before I brought the mixture together with my hands.

Step 3:

Now you knead it gently, and then seperate the dough in half, and shape each half into a ball.

Step 4:

Grease 2 baking trays (or 2 round tins of approx. 18cm across, and 5mm thick, like I did) (you could use vegetable oil, like I did, or butter to grease the trays/tins) and place each ball into each tray (or tin) and either gently roll with a rolling pin (or press the dough out with your hands, like I did) to make a circle the same size as the tin (as I put above). Try and make the circle of dough as even as possible. I used the bottom of a round glass to do this, although it did leave a few round marks on the dough, but you could hardly notice them. Pinch the outer edge of both circles of dough (I used my right thumb to do this, but I s'pose you can use any finger, it's up to you, but I wouldn't advise using your toes *laughs*). Now use a 5cm round cutter (or a small liquor glass, which I had to do, because I didn't have a round cutter) and push it into the centre of each circle of dough.

These are how my 2 circles of dough looked after Step 4.

Step 5:

Using a sharp knife, cut around the center circle of each big circle, into 8 pieces, but try not to cut into the centre circles.

Step 6:

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C, 350F, or gas 4 (which is what I did) for 18 - 20 mins. Then take them out of the oven, and sprinkle them with caster sugar, and cut along the lines you did earlier.

But the ones I did weren't quite done after 20 mins, so I tried another 3 mins, and then I ate one of the centre circles, and noticed it was still a bit too moist in the middle. So then I went to bed, and my companion/mentor put them back in the oven for another 10 mins, then left them to cool, and then put them into a tin, one on top of the other.

And here's the finished product. By the way, the cracks had nothing to do with me, that happened when my companion/mentor lifted them out of each tin with a broad bladed knife, after they'd cooled down. Although, I did make one of them crack when I used a knife to see if it would come out of the tin, after it had had an extra 3 mins in the oven, before I went to bed.

Thanks for reading about how I made Petticoat Tails. Despite them being cracked, and being in the oven for longer than the recipe said, they actually taste really nice, and smell lovely too. They have a very soft texture, but not so soft that they break apart when I dipped one in my tea today. My companion said "They were very melty and crumbly.".

Please let me know what you thought of my blog post and my Petticoat Tails.

Lots of blogging love, Ss1. xxx

P.S. It almost feels like I've been blogging about baking food forever. This post was so easy to write, although it took me well over an hour and a half. Plus, the Petticoat Tails were great fun to make. I even said "They're my babies in there!" just after I first put my Petticoat Tails in the oven. It reminded me of what someone in the Bake Off said, but I can't think who it was. 





Bread & butter pudding and The Great British Bake Off Masterclass.

I blog best when something is fresh in my mind. Which is why I'm blogging at one-fourty-one in the morning. (But to me it's still the evening.)

Tonight I watched The Great British Bake Off Masterclass, which is episode 9/11, in this year's Bake Off series. Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood show you exactly how to make the technical bakes from the series.

In this episode (which was from last Thursday) Paul shows us how to make the perfect Focaccia, and Mary shows us how to make Tarte Au Citron, Coffee and Walnut Battenburg, and Brandy Snaps.

I've got to say, Mary makes everything look so easy to make. I love how she takes her time with explaining how to do each little part. Not like Paul Hollywood. I don't think he's precise enough. Like when he was making Focaccia he just put the olive oil onto it in quite a slap-dash manner.

It was a real joy to watch though. I loved it when they would add little flashbacks from the series, and show a little bit of the contestants, and Mel and Sue.

I especially enjoyed seeing Jo's Brandy Snaps disaster again. That was very funny - the oven was set to Defrost by accident. Poor Jo though, I really felt sorry for her. But it wasn't all doom and gloom. After all, she did win the competition. Hooray!

Now, time to show you the Bread & Butter Pudding I microwaved. I know it's not proper cooking, but I'm getting there, one small step at a time.

Doesn't it look lovely? I certainly enjoyed eating it! (Well 2/3 of it, but it does serve 2.)

Anyway, if you have anything to say about the Masterclass, or my Bread & Butter Pudding, please leave a message after the tone. Ha! Only joking. Leave a comment. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease. *smiles at you*

Lots of bloggin' love, Ss1. xxx

The Great British Bake Off - final!

Now that The Great British Bake Off has finished, I feel a bit sad. I know there are three more episodes left, but that's not the competition part. I've really loved watching the show. It's such a joyful programme to watch, and it had such lovely people in it this year who took part. And the fact that Mel and Sue were allowed to be more funny, and that I had a part to play in that, because of my Twitition, means a lot to me.

From the start I had two favourites - Jo and Holly, and I said on Twitter that if one of them won then I'd be very happy. And I am, because Jo won! Well done Jo! But commiserations to Mary-Anne and Holly, who were both great in the final.

And I think it's bizzare that the person who ended up winning the competition was the first to comment on my blog (out of all the Bake Off people). That was an exciting moment - when I found that someone new commented on my blog, and it was Jo. At that time I had no idea who she was. Then I read her profile on Blogger, and found out she was going to be on The Great British Bake Off. Then the next thing I know, on Twitter, Holly retweets a tweet of mine to do with my blog. And she followed me. These were all very exciting moments for me, and the show hadn't even been shown yet!

I had three favourite moments in the episode, which I'd like to share with you.

The first was when Jo, Holly and Mary-Anne were all busy doing the second challenge, which is the technical bake. They had to make a Sacher torte each, which is an Austrian chocolate cake, and has the word Sacher written in the middle of it in milk chocolate. This was a funny thing to watch, as they all had a different style of writing.

Holly's Sacher was very neat, and pretty.

Jo's Sacher wasn't the neatest, and she said on the show that it was child-like, and that she's terrible at writing, however I liked it, especially the extra swirls above and below the word Sacher.

And Mary-Anne's Sacher was spelt Sacha, which is similar to her daughter's name, Sasha. And this happened because Sue distracted her, by talking to her, saying you don't want to misspell it, and then said that you could put Sasha, and it would be an ode to her daughter.

And here is Sue and Mary-Anne just after Mary-Anne spelt the word Sacher wrong. They both crack up with laughter. It was such a funny moment.

The second moment which I really liked was when a squirrel pops up in a shot, showing us it's private parts. In a way, it's kind of wrong to show that on TV, but in another way, it was very funny. So... in order to show you this shot in the politest way possible, I have blacked out it's private parts, and given it a nice yellow border. I hope you like it.

This is a funny pic isn't it? In a way the black circle kind of emphasises its parts more. But look how cute its eyes are. I just had to show this pic!

And last but not least, this next moment was probably the funniest moment in the episode. This was when Holly was busy doing the final Show-stopper Challenge, and she had to run and get a bowl. Sue then decided to follow her. And Sue said "It's get fit with Holly." and Holly laughed.

Here's a pic of Holly and Sue.

Personally, I think they both look very happy. What do you think?

And, my final blog post about The Great British Bake Off, series 2, would not be complete, without a few pics of the much deserved winner, Jo.

Here is Jo with her amazing Show-stopper display. Including: Mini Victoria Sandwiches, Rasperry, White Chocolate and Pistachio Mini Meringues and Mini Banoffee Pie with Banana Mousse.

This is the moment when Mel has told everyone that it's Jo who has won.

This is when Mary Berry hands Jo the winner's trophy, and says to Jo "Couldn't of happened to a nicer girl.". I couldn't agree more.

And this is probably my favourite shot, when Mel and Sue hug Jo. It just makes me feel really happy looking at it.

I really hope you liked my final Bake Off blog post for this series. It's a show I'll probably never forget, because it's just so great. Hopefully there'll be a show as good as this which I can blog about in the future.

Please leave a comment about the show, or/and what you thought of my blog post and pics.

Thanks for reading, and bye for now. Ss1. xxx



My last two Gingerbread eggs.

Ok, so, seeing as I had nothing else to do, I just decorated my last two Gingerbread eggs. But this time, I did a very special dedication on them. And because they are my favourite Great Britsh Bake Off contestants, it had to be for Joanne Wheatley, and Holly Bell.

And here they are!

I really hope you like them. The idea just came to me about an hour and a half ago.

Please leave a comment letting me know what you thought.

Ss1. x

One more Gingerbread Egg!

Yes! I decorated another Gingerbread Egg earlier today! And I just had to show it to you guys!

I'll let the pic do all the talking this time. I don't want to bore you with some long back story about the Egg being dated July or anything (like I did in my last post).

I hope you guys like it. I decided to just focus on the zigzag pattern this time, and I added chocolate beans along the line of icing, which is pink, by the way.

Let me know what you think. Ss1. x

Gingerbread eggs (which were meant for Easter).

While I sit here, with The X Factor to the right of me, I am writing about Gingerbread Eggs. Although I'd love to say that I baked them myself, I can't. They are from a plastic container. They were meant to be ate at Easter time, but I never did eat them. But they are still ok, even though they are dated July. But, I did decorate them myself, with the icing and chocolate beans that came with the eggs. And because I'm taking an interest in baking at the moment, I thought it was an appropriate thing to do, to show you my decorating skills. It's not the first time I've decorated this kind of thing, as I decorated some Gingerbread Men before. I hope you like my decorated Gingerbread Eggs...

...And here they are!

I decided to keep the decorating quite simple, because, well, they are just eggs. And sometimes it's the simple things that look the best.

I did eat one of these, by the way. I ate the one on the left, because I like the colour blue. And someone else ate the one on the right. Oh, and that's because they like the colour green.

Please let me know what you thought of my decorating. I don't know whether it's good or bad.

The next time I blog about something which is baked, I hope it's something I've baked myself. I'd be so proud if I baked something, and it came out well!

Thanks for reading. Ss1. x