Brighton Vegan Food and Lifestyle Blog
I absolutely adore squashes, particularly butternut squash and pumpkin. My Pinterest boards are full of golden leaves, squashes and caramel apple delights. It inspired me to make some pumpkin spice muffins – here’s how I made these delicious treats – perfect for on-the-go breakfasts or a weekend snack. Continue reading “Vegan Pumpkin Spice Muffins Recipe”
I’m a complete and utterly self-confessed chocaholic! This week is National Chocolate Week 2012 and it excites me. Although don’t you just wish there was free chocolate sent to everyone just because of it? Me too.
Anyhow, I thought I’d share with you some of the yummies I’ve been enjoying lately, what I’ve been drooling at and dreaming of, and a recipe for one of the delicious treats I have been snacking on.
First of all, what I’ve been enjoying:
Rice Crispy Brownies…. so delish, seriously, and the recipe for you to make them is further on in this post!
Cadbury’s new Dairy Milk bars: Toffee Popcorn and Golden Biscuit Crunch. I preferred the Golden Biscuit Crunch one, it was so delish. I’m kind of addicted and am ignoring those cravings right now! They are currently on 2 for £3 in Sainsburys right now, which is where I picked them up from.
Cadbury’s Mint Bubbly Bar: Basically the Bubbly bar (similar-ish to an Aero) but with a layer of creamy mint, yum!
Things I am lusting after:
Hotel Chocolat’s ‘Squirrels Stash‘ which are pralines filled with crunchy nuts, yum!
Montezuma’s Monkey Bar in ‘Shake and Shiver’, a dark chocolate bar with added cocoa nibs and mint.
And for my face, Raw Gaia’s Raw Chocolate face pack. Now I love Lush’s cupcake face mask, and this also sounds as delish… not sure if I could stop myself from attempting to taste it though!
A recipe
Now as mentioned before I said I had a recipe for you, for the Rice Krispie Brownies! The recipe is by Nigella Lawson:
Line your cake pan with aluminum foil or get out one of your trusty foil pans. Put butter, golden syrup, and chopped chocolates (not the morsels) in a heavy-based and fairly wide saucepan and melt over a low heat. Stir to mix the glossy goo, take it off the heat, then quickly pour and stir in the Rice Krispies. Still off the heat, quickly stir in the chocolate morsels, and spoon and scrape the mixture into your pan of choice. I find it easier, once the gunk is in the tin, to smooth the top with hands covered in a pair of disposable vinyl gloves. Put in the refrigerator to set for about 4 hours before cutting.
Make ahead: The brownies can be made up to 2 days ahead. Wrap pan tightly with plastic wrap and store in a cool place. In warm or humid weather, store in the refrigerator. Cut into squares before serving. Keeps for 3-4 days.
Since I upgraded my Silhouette Studio software to the Designer Edition (it was £20, so very worth it!) I can now use svg files and this has opened up a whole new world of free cutting files!
I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite of the ones I’ve found recently – they are halloween and autumn themed, which of course most of which can be used all through the year, too! Continue reading “Fave Free Halloween Cutting Files”
Yep. You’ve got it right.
Today I am looking at not only what inspires me, but how to save money. I’m an avid crafter and am lucky to have a room where I can do my crafty stuff without any fear of covering the whole house with glitter and mini alphas (any scrapbooker will know what I mean by that!). At the weekend I had a bit of a work on my room as it was slightly cluttered. I have a lot more work to do on it, but I thought I’d share with you one of the things that I recently picked up second hand from a local craft shop which is relocating. Ahold my paper storage unit:
(plz ignore the polar bear and my ‘diary’ board!)
I have lots more paper in that 12×12 plastic tub, but I shall need to get some more of those plastic shelves, so at the moment it only houses my cardstock and any new kits I have.
Speaking of kits, have you ever made yourself a kit out of your existing crafting stash? I do this every so often for a number of reasons, but mainly…
It saves buying way too much new stuff! You can see how newer and older collections can work together, which can be inspirational in itself. Look at different colours and even materials used in other crafts.
There’s actually a blog I found recently where they post a beautiful kit from a scrapbooking kit club (eg Studio Calico, Cocoa Daisy, Scrapagogo…) and then using your own supplies you create a kit for yourself inspired by it! I thought it was pretty cool and think that one day soon when I’m not super busy I will have to give it a go! The awesomely inspiring blog is called Counterfeit Kit Challenge, so go take a peek at it if you want to set yourself a scrapping challenge with what you already have.
See, I told you that this ‘shopping from home’ was a good idea!
Last week was National Cupcake Week and I thought that I would make some cupcakes to mark the occasion – well, why not?! So it was debated which animal I should do next, after my pig cupcakes, and it was decided on pandas.
I used the last of the packet mixes I’d acquired from the USA, a Duncan Hines Red Velvet mix. From now on I shall make my cakes from scratch (unless someone sends me some more USA mixes, haha). I filled the cupcakes with cherry pie filling, and then baked them as per instruction. Once they had cooled I topped them with a buttercream frosting with added Marshmallow Fluff. Then it was time to get creative!
As you can see, I’m not the most skilled decorator, but I gave it my best shot and used the amazing coal dust crystals c/o The Gobstopper for the fur around the eyes, and the nose, mouth, eyes and ears are all slices of Panda licorice (see what I did there?!).
The cakes tasted delicious and that’s not just me saying that! The buttercream tasted great and the cherry pie filling really complimented the red velvet cake. I’m so glad that I added the sherbert. It tasted so good on the cakes, and alone (with a spoon, hiding…. joking, only just!!). The sherbert is called ‘coal dust’ and I must admit I’d not seen stuff like it before. The lovely people from The Gobstopper sent some to me with a bag of delicious lemon sherbert too. I loved how well-wrapped the sherbert was and luckily for me it also turned up on my birthday, so it was a nice surprise.
Now I’m trying to figure out which animal I’m going to make cupcakes of next…. any ideas?!
PS sign ups for the penpal swap end this Sunday…. get on it right now!!