Christmas is coming!

It's December now so I can officially start getting excited about Christmas!!!! Yay!!!

To celebrate I decided to make myself a little Christmassy beverage.

Christmas Hot Chocolate

(Source)

Ingredients

Hot Chocolate

1/4tsp Ground ginger

1/4tsp Ground cinnamon

1/4tsp Ground nutmeg

1/4tsp Ground cloves

Method

This is so simple a monkey could do it.  All you need to do is put in however much hot chocolate powder the packet says.  Add the spices and then proceed to make your hot chocolate how your normally do!  It's wonderfully warming and is cheaper than going out to Costa or Starbucks.

For extra Christmas cheer add some marshmallows and whipped cream!  Scrumptious!

30 Day Challenge - 29. A picture of yourself AND 30. What has changed this month and what you hope will happen next month.

That picture is me at graduation!  I get to do it twice because I'm special!  (Also because I did a foundation degree then a top up... Technicalities.)  Anyways there I am in all my glory and silly hatness.  I've honestly never felt so ridiculous, those robes have so much fabric in them, they kept slipping off and I felt like I was walking round with a table on my head.  It was all good fun though!

And now on to the last point!  Which I can't really do seeing as this has taken me 3 months to finish instead of 30 days....  I'll just go with what has changed whilst I've been doing this challenge.

So the first thing that changed was I became a 3rd year and decided what I'm going to focus on this year!!  Go me!!!  I also graduated (see picture above!).  However I have felt a little less confident in myself recently.  That tends to happen when 2 of your tutors practically accuse you of bullying just because one of your close friends isn't doing exactly what they want her to.  Oh well I'm sure I'll be back to myself in no time!

Ok now what I hope will happen next month.  Well firstly I hope that the 2 shows I have go well!  Secondly I hope we get snow on Christmas and that I have a lovely time with all my family.

That's it for this challenge!  I'm going to start another one on Monday, and hopefully finish it properly this time.

If you'd like to find out more about the 30 Day Challenge then click here!

30 Day Challenge - 27. Talk about your siblings.

Erm... I have none.  I'm an only child!  I can't really say much else so I'll just move on.

So it's around a month until Christmas now so I thought I'd start getting in the spirit by making my layout a little more festive!  Hope you like it!

If you fancy getting in the Christmas mood then check out my gingerbread biscuit recipe I posted last year.  It's the yummiest gingerbread I've ever eaten!  This year I'm planning on posting a last minute Christmas cake recipe.  I made it for my bf's parents last year and they loved it so I hope you do too!

If you want to find out more about the 30 Day Challenge then click here!

30 Day Challenge - 26. Your religious beliefs.

Ok so this isn't really the 30 day challenge any more seeing as I started this in September and it's now November...  Sorry!!  But I will persevere til the end!

I've been putting off writing this one for a bit because religion is always a tricky subject.  I've never been particularly religious myself but I do love going to churches, cathedrals and places of worship like that I always find fascinating.

As for the practise of religion itself, I'm not so sure about that.  I don't have anything against the basis of the religions themselves, but there's always that one extremist view.  I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable believing in something that someone else has interpreted in a way which could hurt other people.

For now I'm just content dipping into religion occasionally and being more of an observer.  Although I can't deny that I do love the carol concerts at the cathedral at Christmas time.  It's not Christmas without a good sing song!

All pictures were taken at Carlisle Cathedral.  If you're ever in the city you should take a look inside, it's beautiful!

If you want to find out more about the 30 Day Challenge then click here!

Pre-Christmas Baking

So about a month ago myself and a couple of friends were feeling a bit down so we decided to indulge in one of my friend's traditions of having a pre-christmas party. I have to say it was possibly the best idea we've ever had!!! We all decided that we were going to bake something for the party so we spent a morning making a complete mess of my kitchen while listening to Christmas songs and wearing Santa hats!!....In October! :)

I decided to make some gingerbread snowflake biscuits. Have to say they were pretty delicious! I will definitely be using this recipe again and again, in fact I might make some in a minute... Anyway here's the recipe!

Gingerbread Biscuits

(original recipe can be found here)

Ingredients

350g plain flour

1tsp ground ginger

1/2tsp ground cloves

1/2tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g butter

175g soft brown sugar

1 egg

4tbsp golden syrup

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix together the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda.

2. Rub in the butter (using your fingertips) until it looks like breadcrumbs.

3. Add the sugar and mix.

4. In a separate bowl mix together the egg and golden syrup.

5. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until it forms a dough.

6. Tip this out on to a clean, floured work surface and knead it until it's smooth.

7. Roll out the dough until it is about 0.5cm thick and then cut it out using whatever cutter you want/have.

8. Put the biscuits on a greased baking tray (I like to put grease proof paper on my baking trays too) and then bake in the oven for 10-15mins.

9. Ice if you want to!

I iced mine using royal icing. There it a specific way to ice biscuits using 2 different thicknesses of icing however after 3 biscuits I gave up on this method and just slapped it on using a palette knife, which worked quite well!! I then added some edible glitter or lustre dust to them to make them sparkle and shimmer like real snowflakes! I'm so incredibly excited to have edible glitter I wouldn't be surprised if everything incorporates it from now on.... Hehe!

My friends also made brownies, mince pies, white chocolate tarts and rum balls!! Lets commence with the silly pictures!