Pastries!

That's right it's pastry time!  Now if you're anything like me that word is one of the scariest words in cooking, well don't worry you won't have to make any of it by hand.  For what I'm going to show you today we'll be using puff pastry, which is even more of a pain to make than normal pastry, so just go down to your local supermarket and buy the pre-made stuff!

First I'm going to show you...

S'mores Pasties!
My inspiration for these was taken from this page that I found whilst stumbling through the internet.

There isn't a specific recipe for these so I just had to experiment a little.  I made mini ones but you can make these whatever size you want!

Ingredients
Pre-made puff pastry (I got around 10 of these out of 1/3 of a 500g block)
Milk chocolate
Mini marshmallows
1 egg

Method
1. Roll out the puff pastry until it's about 3/4mm thick.

2. Cut into squares.  You can make them any size you want but I think my squares were around 5cmx5cm

3. Add the chocolate and marshmallows to the centre of the square.  For mine I found that half a square of the chocolate and 2 mini marshmallows worked well.  Too many marshmallows and you'll end up with a sticky mess in your oven! (I found my marshmallows wouldn't stay in one place so only added them just before folding).

4. Crack the egg into a small bowl and beat the yolk and white together.  Once it's combined (or near enough) take a pastry brush and coat the edges of the pastry in this egg wash.  Don't throw it away we'll be needing it again in a bit!

5. Fold the squares in half corner to corner so you end up with little triangles.  The egg wash we just put on the edges should act like a glue and help stick it together.  To complete seal the seams (and for a bit of decoration) just crimp the edges with a fork.

6. Poke a couple of steam holes in the top with a sharp knife, brush on more egg wash so that the top goes nice and shiny and place them on to a baking tray.  (Always line your baking tray with grease proof paper!  You don't want to be cleaning up the sticky mess left behind if any of them leak!)

7. Place into a preheated oven at 200C.  Wait 15-20minutes or until golden on top.
8. Try to resist the urge to gobble them straight out of the oven and wait about 2/3mins for them to cool a little then enjoy!

It looks like this pastry thing is going to turn into a series of posts so next time it'll be... Mini cinnamon swirls!

Giveaway at Island Girl Insights

I've never entered one of these giveaways before but as it's Rach I thought I'd give it a go.  Not sure why I've never entered one before... Oh well!

Anyway she's having a giveaway! (If you hadn't already realised..)

You could win 2 different scents of dry shampoo, a Rimmel nail varnish and cocoa butter Vaseline!  Click here to find out how to enter!

If I had more followers I might think about doing one of these.  If anyone has any tips on getting more readers I'd greatly appreciate it!

DFTBA x

Hmm...

Only 2 days after I posted that another supposed friend made me feel like they just didn't care... again.

It doesn't upset me so much any more, it's just frustrating!  I really don't understand why people aren't conscientious and don't think about how their actions make others feel.

Anyway been listening to this song a lot and I just think it's so beautiful.

After all she's been through, and all of it in the public eye, to comeback like this I find really admirable.

Will post something less ranty/depressing later this week I promise!

It might involve cake. ;)
DFTBA x

So long fair-weather friends!

If you don't want to listen to me ranting and raving then I suggest you don't read any further than this.

I'm sick and tired of feeling like I care more about my friends than they do about me.  I'm tired of always being the one who makes the effort to keep in contact.  I'm tired of being messed around with people cancelling on me last minute with a lame excuse.  And I'm tired of people being nice to my face but bitchy behind my back for no good reason.

Right now I can only think of two people who I know I can always rely on and who are true friends to me.  The rest of them all seem to take turns in messing me around and generally making me feel crap.

Well no more!!!  I'm not going to let these people get me down any more.  I am a nice person and I deserve to have friends who aren't just my friends when it's convenient for them.  If I've done something you don't like then tell me, we might scream and shout at each other but if we make it out the other side then it'll only strengthen our friendship.  If you don't want to be my friend and don't really care about me or our friendship then by all means don't contact me, but don't expect me to come running to your aid anymore.

In keeping with this idea of having friends who are true friends I'm also going to contact a couple of people from my school who I've lost contact with.  I know that they're genuinely lovely people and I just wish we'd been closer so I'm going to try and rectify that!

Hmm...

Currently wondering what to buy with my birthday money.  Really tempted to get a 3DS but wondering if it's worth the money?...  I really want to get Zelda and Starfox for it.

If anyone has a 3DS is it good?  I've heard the 3D effect can give people headaches...  Let me know what you think about the 3DS in the comments or email me!

If I end up not getting it I'll probably just buy books ;)

Happy birthday!!!

Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday to you!  Happy birthday dear Rachaaaaaael!  Happy birthday to you!!!

Hope you have a wonderful 21st birthday!!!  :D

And DFTBA
xxx

Nails

Ok so I just realised that I totally forgot about showing you my Harry Potter manicure.  I did take pictures but they're not very good and I also took them about a week after I did the manicure so there's a few chips...

This is my bad hand (i.e. I'm left handed so I had to paint this with the wrong hand...).  It's not too bad but it's not great either.  As you can see I used a black base, then painted on my designs in silver (lightning bolt on ring finger and the deathly hallows on my thumb).  Once my design had dried I added a flakey top coat.  Any glittery top coat would look good but I always think there's something magical about flakies.

What you can't tell from the picture is that instead of using a normal black I used GOSH Black Passion.  It's basically just black but it's packed with really fine silver glitter.  I've never seen a nail polish like it and I love it!  The flakey I used is also by GOSH and I think it's called Rainbow.  GOSH do some seriously awesome nail varnishes and I think you should check them out if you don't know about them already.

Blurry :(  I suck at taking nail pictures clearly.  But you can see the design and that's all that matters.  I used a thin paintbrush to paint my designs on.  Probably ruined them but they weren't good ones anyway.  You can buy special brushes to paint nail designs on but this probably isn't going to be a normal thing for me to do so it wouldn't be worth me buying them.

This is the lightning nail from my right hand, as you can see I'm much better at painting with my left than my right.

And that concludes my Harry Potter manicure!

I hope you enjoyed it!  I'd love to know about anything Harry Potter related you've done, even if it's just something like you're re-reading one of the books.  Or checking your email every 5 minutes to see if you have your welcome email from Pottermore.  It's always good to meet new Potterheads :)

DFTBA x

Indulging myself in Harry Potter

So if you know me at all you'll know I'm a big Harry Potter fan.  (And I'm ever so envious of Rachael at Island Girl Insights who has actually been to the HP theme park!!!)

Since the last film came out I've pretty much constantly been obsessing about HP.  It's probably not healthy but I don't have a job so it's doing a good job of filling up my days.  I've been doing everything from reading the books and watching the films to re-playing Lego Harry Potter Year 1-4. (Must. Get. 100%!!!)

Then last week was the release of the Magical Quill Clues which granted you early access to Pottermore.  I managed to be one of the lucky few who registered on the very first day so hopefully won't be waiting for my welcome email for too long!  *fingers crossed*

Anyway to celebrate my 21st birthday last week (YAAAY!) I decided to experiment with some Harry Potter related recipes I found here a few weeks ago.

I made Acid Pops, Liquorice Wands, Butterbeer and Cauldron Cakes.

That's a picture of my cauldron cakes without their handles.  Aren't they adorable?!?!  I'm making a video where I talk about everything birthday related so I'll be posting that soon, where you get to see completed Cauldron Cakes!  With handles and EDIBLE GLITTER!

I have to say they were surprisingly simple to make and were delicious!  You can find the recipe for these here.  (Looks at how cute they look with the handles!!!!)  I substituted buttercream for the filling as it's hard to find marshmallow fluff over here and I really couldn't be bothered making my own.

I will post more birthday happenings once all the birthday happenings have happened...  In other words I've not been to my parents yet so will put the video up once I've seen them and all by birthday things have finished!

DFTBA!

P.S. DFTBA = don't forget to be awesome.  I think you should all check out Vlogbrothers.

You're doing it wrong!

Ok so it's officially only 52 minutes until I turn 21.  Then I will be able to legally drink alcohol in all of the US states.  Which will be helpful if I ever go to the US and fancy a cocktail or two.

I've not posted in a bit because...  Well if I'm honest I just got a bit annoyed at this entire blogging thing.  Not particularly with my blog but with some others that I've been following.  Maybe I'm getting the idea of a blog entirely wrong but surely you write a blog because you like to write?  And if you like to write then you should care about how you write.  No?  So if both of these things are true then you should care about your spelling and grammar?  (Feel free to leave a comment if you think I'm talking crazy.)

I've been following a lot of blogs recently and it infuriates me to see people writing blogs with incorrect spelling and grammar.  This vexes me most when it's someone whose first language is English.  If you can't be bothered to learn how to write your own language properly then why are you bothering with a blog?  A blog is all about writing!  Have some respect and pick up a dictionary once in a while.

Sorry for the rant but this is a pet peeve of mine and really gets me wound up!

If, like me, you prefer your grammar and spelling to be correct at all times then you might like this book.

It's a very good and amusing read!  I know that I picked up on a lot of grammar that I didn't know about or had forgotten from this book.

You should also watch the video below!  Hank Green at his Nerdfighteria best.

P.S. Agh 39 minutes til I'm old now!