Saturday scrapping: Layouts inspired by Jennifer Grace Creates

Didn't you all just love Jennifer Grace's Onwards and Upwards blog hop last weekend?

One of her challenges was to go up, and up, and up. There was a few options and I went with the one to use a photo inspired with the idea of flight - I immeadiately thought of some photos from a trip to London earlier this year to visit my sister. We went to a food show and as we left we noticed that we were at the launch pad for the Emirates cable cars across the Thames.
I used American Crafts and other travel ranges and layered 'up' as was one of the other prompts in this challenge.

I also used the Dear Lizzie Range to create the layout below of our Mother's Day celebrations. I keep meaning to post the recipe for the honey cake pictured below top - it was so yummy and I was so impressed that I could create an actual layer cake as opposed to cupcakes. This layout was also created with the 'up' prompt in mind and I used the chevron paper to use arrows on the page. 

Lastly the above layout of our mother's day meal. I used the 'to be inspired' prompt of using triangles to create direction on a page. I used Studio Calico wood veneers and Amy Tangerine stamps to decorate this layout and some other American Crafts papers to layer it up. I have a thickers and lettering shortage at the moment and so created the title using leftovers from several sheets.
These prompts all worked well with the way that I like to scrap and I am pleased with them.

Cookies and cream brownies...

Do you ever feel like you're just playing at being an adult? I am almost *gulp* thirty and yet I still think of myself as a young student type. In fact I went to my first grown up Pampered Chef party and made two purchases and this made me feel like a real adult. I stroke my brownie pan and feel like I have arrived. It is a great brownie pan.

So I got to thinking what type of brownies shall I make? This is when I remembered about a recipe which had caught my eye in my Lorraine Pascale 'Baking Made Easy' recipe book.

They were deliciously fudgy and the cookie topping made them extra special.

Here is the recipe:

• 165g (5 1⁄2oz) butter, plus extra for greasing
• 200g (7oz) dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped
• 3 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 165g (5 1⁄2oz) soft light
• brown sugar
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt
• 154g pack of oreo biscuits, broken into quarters
• Icing sugar, for dusting
• 20cm (8in) square baking tin

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas Mark 6 with the middle shelf ready. Grease the baking tin, then line with baking paper with the paper overlapping the sides a little.
2. Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat. When the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat and add the grated chocolate.
3. Leave to stand for a few minutes until the chocolate goes soft then stir together. Alternatively, you can put the chocolate and butter in bowl and melt in the microwave in 25-second blasts, stirring well each time.
4. Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla together in a large bowl until they begin to get light and fluffy. Add the sugar in two additions whisking between each. Pour it around the side of the egg mix so as not to knock out the air that has been whisked in to it. Keep whisking until the mixture becomes stiffer. Once the egg mixture is ready pour the chocolate into it, again around the sides so as not to knock the air out.
5. Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt and a third of the oreos and stir until fully combined, then pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Scatter the remaining oreos over the top, pressing them in slightly. Bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes. The middle should be very so slightly gooey. Leave the brownies to cool in the tin. The top will sink and crack a little.
6. Pull the brownies out using the overlapping paper and cut the brownies into squares. Dust with icing sugar.

Taken from Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale (Harper Collins, £18.99)

By Lorraine Pascale

Let me know if you give them a try...

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Linking up to BruCrew Life

and

Cupcake Crazy Gem who has also been baking with oreos recently

Autumn Raspberry and Coconut crumble

As the days get colder and the evenings begin to draw in...it's the perfect time for a bowl full of crumble and custard.

This crumble is so simple.
Take one punnet of fresh raspberries.
Mix in a few tablespoons of sugar and three tablespoons of desicated coconut.
Top with a packet of crumble topping.
Bake for around 30 minutes at 180 degrees.

A quick, easy and delicious pud for an autumn evening.
What do you put in your crumble?

Canadian Dessert Bar

So visas and Canadian embassy willing my little sister and her husband, Byron, are off to Canada for a year to study. She is a little bit obsessed with dessert bars and so I decided to make a Canadian themed one for a leaving pressie for them.
Here I am with the finished table:

Don't you love these straws? They were perfect for the red and white theme and I am sure they have plenty of a&w in Canada - even though it is American!

The rocky road bars made by my other sister - Mara.

The above are maple syrup cookies - recipe found here.

Above are my cake pops, which I am featuring for United Cakes of America the series over on Cupcake Crazy Gem's blog.  What could be more American? Even the name is difficult to say without an accent! I used the method from Elsie's blog - I love her 'how to' as it features step-by-step photos and I am a visual learner. The only difference was that I used shop brought brownies and mushed them up with a cup of marshmallow fluff and then froze them. I used milk chocolate to dip them and them a variety of different coloured and shaped sprinkles.
Gem's showed me a good technique of using a large glass to dip them and to sprinkle the sprinkles instead of dunking as I sometimes do.
So if any of you have been baking up anything featuring American ingredients or that would be classed as an American bake then you can link up to Gem's blog.
In the meantime I have just brought the ingredients for Lorraine Pascale's cookies and cream brownies and so will feature them soon...I feel like I haven't blogged any baking for a while. Truth is I've had a summer off from baking and have been much more into scrapbooking. Apparantly we've been trying to be more healthy...

Food inspired scrapping with American Crafts...yum!

So now I have discovered photo collages I shall be making them all the time. I have a backlog of pages to share at the moment, but I don't want to rush it and I was them all to have their turn to shine so I thought today's post could follow the theme of food.
We're big eaters in my family. More specifically big eaters of desserts and anything sweet.
Hence why three out of the four sisters are into baking.
We always joke that on holidays all our pictures are of food and so it looks like that's all we do.
To be fair holidays are often focused upon food.
Aren't they?

My first layout (pictured below) focuses on our love of American junk food.
On a trip to London last half term my sister and I found an abundantly stocked little corner shop full of all things American - like marshmallow fluff, pop tarts in all sorts of crazy varieties and all things Hershey.
I brought a super sized tub of marshmallow fluff for making whoopee pies and then thought that this picture was worth scrapping about.
I had this sheet of AC knocking around for a while and couldn't find the perfect use but really was drawn to it. I find with overly busy pages it's best to include a matt to break up the pattern and ensure that the pattern doesn't swamp your pics.

My second layout features our buy one get one free frappes from Starbucks.
I used embossing and rule of three to embellish this layout and wanted to make these pictures the forefront of my layout.
A big title and some washi to embellish and et voila - layout complete!

The third layout is from Christmas Day when I went for dinner with the in-laws. It's my brother-in-law tucking into his oysters. I found it amusing as he picked the most expensive starter on the menu and his dad enquired if he was paying and I wanted the title to reflect this.
The journalling was written on a some Christmas labels that were 50p in a pre-Christmas sale at Ikea and we all used them for our pressies - but the leftovers made great journalling spots.

Do you often find yourselves taking pictures of food or scrapping about food - especially on holidays? Or is it just me?

Baked goods scrap off...

In the one corner we have the lovely layer cake and it the other corner we have delicious churros. Who wins in the scrapping bake-off?

An ode to the delectable choice of delicious cakes in Budapest - using a washi tape border that I found on this blog.

A layout about a humble little Churro store which opened in Camden - we were among his first customers.

The vote is in YOUR hands!

 

Valentines Snack Bar: Mini Me!

Above is the sight which met my husband when he got back from his week in Belgium. I got lots of ideas from pinterest and had a lot of fun decorating the table fancy for him.

I included some layouts of the two of us to decorate the wall behind and chopped up some nice fresh veg to dip in the hummous.

Above are greek salad bites with feta cheese, black olives, cucumber and a cherry tomatoe - they were very tasty and very easy to make. Although not always to stand up! Do you notice the chocolate dipped pringles in the background? A super tasty and indulgent snack and a good way to use up the leftover chocolate from the cake pops.

 Our fav parmesan and olive bread above, recipe found here it is so easy to make and I even prettied the butter up by cutting it with a heart cutter. Below the cake pops that I have already posted about:-

 This candle, table runner and napkins were all 50% off at Asda - it's always good to celebrate a holiday after the event if you want some bargains! I filled heart patterned cupcake cases with little heart shaped chocolates and jelly sweets.

Click on the picture for a better look - I spent ages putting labels on this pic with photoshop but it says that the file is too large. Its annoying!

Blueberries and cherries in little finger bowls, malteasers in a pot decorated with a bow, I covered as box in wrapping paper to try to jazz up the table and add dimension.
 So let me know - have you ever made a dessert bar? Or themed snack bar as mine is!
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Linking up to BruCrew Life and Sumo's Sweet Stuf, Crazy for Crust and Six Sisters' Stuff

Valentine Cake Pops: The Mystery Unravelled

Recently these cuties have been popping up all over blogland. I was inspired by Elsie's how to over on her blog and always love to check out what Bakerella create. My husband has been away all week and so we missed out on celebrating valentines and I have been missing him lots. Last night on the phone I asked what he wanted for our reunion meal and he said a snack board with loads of little snacks. I immeadiately started pinning lots of little sweet and savory treats - check it out here.
He's never been the biggest cupcake fan (annoyingly) but always raved about my sister's cake pops and so I decided to try to make some. I wanted to use up some stuff i had left over from my wedding baking sesh last week. Here is a step by step of my improvised recipe:
1) I combined ten peanut butter chip cookies and half a tub of philadelphia in the mixer.
2) I icing sugared my hands and rolled it into balls and placed cling film on a dish and then put them in the freezer.
3) I melted dark chocolate over boiling water and then put some chocolate on a lolly stick (they sell them at Asda now - yay!) and then you squash it in and dunk the pop, being careful to cover it all - I used a teaspoon and a spatula for this.
4) I dunked them in a variety of sprinkles and then let them set in a vase filled with lentils. I didn't have any foam.
5) After an hour or so I transferred them to the fridge where they are waiting to be gobbled up tomorrow.
I have a whole valentines dessert bar to share with you tomorrow - I am super excited. It is helping to distract me from the loneliness and all this darn marking I have to do.

Let me know if you have had any cake pop success!
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Linking up with Inside BruCrew Life Trick or Treat Tuesday

Making whoopee...

Ever since I got the gorgeous new Hummingbird Bakery cook book I have been drooling over the whoopee pies and tried the Banoffe Pie ones here and so next up was the chocolate and peanut butter ones. I wanted to use my tasty new speculoos I got in Belgium - I even got a jar of it for one of my sixth form students who fell in love with it when I made my speculoos blondies here.
You can find the recipe for these babies here, I substituted peanut butter for Lotus Speculoos (available in Belgium and I think an equivalent is called Biscoff in America and Australia?) 

Top tip: Actually follow the instructions and put the batter in the fridge for a good hour - it made it sooo much easier to mould perfect rounds with as it was the texture of cookies rather than a cake batter.
My sixth form also got to sample these as an impromtu treat for winning a quiz as otherwise i would have scoffed the lot myself!
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Linking up with BruCrew Life's trick or treat Tuesday

TOP THREE OF 2011...

So for the first time this year I am ill. It started day after boxing day and I just thought that I was sea sick as we were on the ferry, but now I'm bunged up and having a duvet day so thought I'd do a 2011 roundup - as is popular in blogland!

Top three layouts I made...

1) Santa Cruz in the sunshine - I love the colour, the paint splatters, the mosaic effect and the memories of a great day out.

2) Baby You're a Firework - great memories of a cracking New Year spent with my family. Great pics with some cool camera effects with the sparklers, bunting was very on trend for 2011 and I like the mix of colours and papers.

3) If the dress fits - my wedding layouts are always going to be favs of mine and this one was extra special as I was craving this overlay for a whole year or so till I found it in Santa Monica. Love the pink and the small little details.

Most popular posts...

1) The one about the zulus (I think this has more to do with people googling zulus than my amazing pics but oh well!)

2) Comic relief with my Where's Wally costume and a wedding layout

3) Frost Yourself - about lovely cupcakes at the Iron Cupcake contest and some Christmas scrapping

Fav scrapping techniques of 2011...

1) Bunting and banners - using number 2 mostly. Can be seen here, here and here.

2) Bakers twine - wrapped round everything!

3) Instax pics - see this post!

Best recipes tried from Pinterest...

1) Life changing mac 'n' cheese - we have made this sooo many times as a last minute supper and its always well recieved. I just love it!

2) Aubergine Parmigana - we love this meal and also have it often. Its so garlicy, cheesy and good!

3) Butternut squash macaroni - are you seeing a pattern emerge? Now butternut squash takes some chopping but its so worth it for this dish!

Best three cupcakes I made...

1) Gimme smore - my personal favs, these were seriously delish!

2) Star crossed lovers - these were placed second in IC. Malteaser cakes and malt frosting.

3) Last but not least - a real fail safe - peanut butter frosting and chocolate sponge. 

Thanks to all my amazing followers - especially those who leave me lots of blog love (Gems, Tamara, Louise and Julie) Happy 2011! Hope you all have a safe and fun evening tonight!
I am thinking what turn to take for 2012 and my blog.
Do you want to see more scrapping? Some tutorials? Thrifting and thrifty tips for crafts and fashion? Baking? Cupcakes? Let me know...
I am considering a project a day but don't know if this is too much of an undertaking?!

Love and hugs and border punches,

Mel xxx

Things I'm loving on Thursday...

Looking forward to making some of these this weekend -yum! Let the Christmas baking commence...

 Last night we had girls night at the super cute Pizza Express in Ilkley. It used to be the old train station and so the building has a bit of character.

 Ever awkward I asked for the four seasons pizza to be 'three seasons' without the anchovies and capers! The girls said it was typical Mel!

 I suddenly found this old cutie sitting sadly in its box, I have only used it once since I got it on ebay. So we had fun taking some snaps and then arguing over who got the pics with our eyes open and us smiling nicely! I have just ordered some more films to snap some quick pics over Christmas - you could scrap the pic you took all on the same day!

 

 I am lusting after a camera die cut, I love when Shimelle uses it on all her travel scrapping and so would love one of these babies.

 Tonight after school I had a hot date of hot choc with my man. We don't often do this - we are usually just boring and go straight home after school so it was exciting and nice to just chat and enjoy one anothers company rather than wasting the afternoon away on the laptop (as I am now!!) Salts diner in Saltaire is such a fab little place and I love, love, love their home shop and want one of everything!

Above is our fabric advent calendar that we got at said home shop for a bargain price since it was already the 1st December! We are going to take it in turns of getting a little treat every other day - love it.

Linking up to the ever great Paisley Jade...