Fake Christmas 2016

I recently celebrated 'Fake Christmas' with my university friends - you can read more about this joyous annual tradition in last year's blog post.

We travelled to Kirsty and Vernon's new house in Minehead for the 2016 edition. There's nothing quite like packing up the car with Christmas presents and Christmas food in the middle of January!

We all arrived from our different corners of the UK on the Saturday morning, and I was welcomed with an Options hot chocolate and marshmallows as I don't drink tea or coffee. An excellent start!

January's obligatory diet quite rightly gets ignored for the weekend of Fake Christmas, so I was delighted when Liz turned up with some rather amazing (and massive) white and milk chocolate chip cookies. Although we all had loads of catching up to do, the room immediately fell silent as we tucked in to these beauties. 

It was so lovely to have one more Christmas in the middle of January... let's face it, January is never a fun month between the weather, post-festive slump and aforementioned diets. There were even Christmas serviettes ready for the occasion!

Kirsty had been preparing the spectacular Christmas dinner and all the trimmings for quite some time and, as always, it was well worth the wait. The cauliflower cheese was a particular highlight for me, as well as the roast potatoes. I think you'll all agree that nothing beats a hefty roast dinner (if you don't agree, we can't be friends). I've pictured the meal with and without gravy... feast your eyes on this!

After a lot of mutual appreciation and a universal need for a post-food nap around the table, we decided to open our presents. We now operate a Secret Santa arrangement rather than buying a present for everyone, and I had two lovely presents from Fee... a travel mug chock-full of Friends quotes and a Soap & Glory Hand Food gift set. The Sugar Crush bottle smells divine! 

After opening our presents, the motion to play Cards Against Humanity was almost unanimously approved. I didn't want to play at first and thought it would be best if I just watched , but it was actually hilarious even for an inoffensive creature like myself. Playing it with eleven people was definitely very interesting!

Although we were all still really full even after playing Cards Against Humanity for hours, there's always room for cake. Liz had made her traditional Fake Christmas cake and it was REALLY good. Between the cookies and the cake, Liz should definitely be crowned the Fake Christmas queen of desserts.

It won't surprise you to hear that I'm already looking forward to Fake Christmas 2017!

Christmas presents... the baking edition

This is the third post in my 'What I got for Christmas' series... I'm feeling very blessed to have had so many lovely presents. Thanks again, everyone!

After making shortbread for the first time a year ago, I've been well and truly bitten by the baking bug. I don't bake too often as I'm very wary about putting on weight (and about spending too much money on ingredients!), but I find it very therapeutic and rewarding when I do decide to do some baking. As a result, I decided to put some baking accessories on my Christmas list this year.

I love these pretty tins my parents bought for me for Christmas. I always store my baking creations in various tupperware containers which isn't ideal, so I was delighted with these tins which will be used especially to store my biscuits, cupcakes, brownies and whatever else I decide to bake in the neat future. They're so beautiful!

I also had this apron, baking mitt and tea towel set from my parents. I always end up with floury clothes (and shoes and face and hair...) whenever I do any baking so this apron will come in very handy. I also love the fact that my apron, oven mitt and tea towels will be coordinated! I love the cheery pattern on these items and will probably end up wearing my apron every time I cook to protect my clothes. I'm sure some people will think it's quite sad that I'm this excited about an apron... each to their own!

I also had this lovely Hummingbird Bakery book from Nicola which I mentioned in my first 'What I got for Christmas' post. I can't wait to bake some tasty items from my book while wearing my new apron, then storing the finished products in my new tins! 

Did you get any baking goodies for Christmas?

A weekend fuelled by sugar

There's no point beating about the bush... I've eaten a LOT of sugar this weekend. My boyfriend decided to cook summer fruit drizzle cake and Smarties cookies especially for the weekend, and I can confirm that both were scrumptious. He used strawberries and raspberries to make the cake, and I could quite honestly have eaten the whole thing in one sitting. It was lovely and moist, with just the right level of sweetness. Luckily, I managed to show a small (ish) level of restraint. The cookies were adapted from a chocolate cookie recipe in 'The Boy Who Bakes' cookbook, and possibly tasted even better with the Smarties than they do with the chocolate chunks. The cookbook was a Christmas present from me, and Neil is quite literally turning into the boy who bakes. This was obviously my intention all along.

Cake and cookie... the Smarties cookies matched my polka dot plates!

Lunch, cake and the cookie did keep me full for most of the day. After seeing Iron Man 3 (which was brilliant, in case you were wondering), we went to Pizza Express with Liz and I ordered the Pomodoro Pesto pizza. By this time, I'd fully acknowledged that the weekend was a diet write-off.

At least I got some of my 5 a day...

The amazing cake and cookies have inspired me to bake some kind of cake after I've finished my assignments. I'm considering a carrot cake... what do people think?