Recipe from Bake Or Break, as taken from the Baked Cookbook.

YUM YUM YUM.

My housemate L says this is the yummiest thing I have ever made, and I agree. As a cupcake, I made the cake as normal, but baked them in little paper cups, which cut the baking time down to about 15 minutes. Then I put half a teaspoon of caramel on top of each cupcake and spread that around, and used a piping bag to frost the cupcakes with the whipped ganache frosting.

And sprinkled the top of each cupcake with fine salt, because I couldn’t find any fleur de sel at Tesco

THEY WENT SO QUICKLY! I brought two boxes for the Islamic Society event, and gave a box to the Jewish Society who were having a Shabbat meal. Went so quickly.

Thankfully I saved about 20 for home use i.e. cupcake craving moments.

After the dinner/shisha event, we (me & Maha) rushed home and got ready for the DRA Ball, which I have been to every year, having lived in DRA for two years – so decided to go this year, even though I don’t live in that residence anymore, just for the hell of it. And because I got free tickets. SCORE!

I wore the gold dress I got for Valentine’s day on Shop Bop, and my insanely high mary jane stiletto’s, that I have affectionately named stripper heels. They’re much too tall to wear for anything other than formal events! I look like a skinny giant in them. It adds like 4 or 5 inches to my height.

But with added height comes compromised stability. I’m lucky I’m not a drinker, because I’ve seen drunk girls barely able to stand in flats, I think my heels on them would be a deathwish.

Music got good at the ball at like 12.30, and I danced a little, then left at like 1am because NYBoy wasn’t feeling so hot, and I wasn’t going to let him get a cab back to St Andrews alone.

And now it’s Saturday…

NYBoy is back to normal, and in my room watching the rugby (because I have a nice TV and he does not). Maha & Paddington are coming over in a little to watch the second rugby game at mine too. I have cupcakes, dorito’s and lots of pomegranate juice to snack on.

I love Saturday’s so much more than Sunday’s

Recipe taken from Bake Or Break.

When I decided to make a cobbler after class today, the reaction I got from most of my housemates was “Cobbler? What is that?”. Until then I never realized fruit cobbler didn’t exist in the UK. According to Wiki, a cobbler in the UK is a savory dish, like lamb casserole… but I’ve lived here for almost 3 years and I’ve never seen “Lamb Cobbler” on any menu.

But Wiki knows all, so I won’t question its existence.

I love searching other blogs for recipes to try, because other home bakers usually add helpful little tips, and there’s less risk involved, so food disasters can be averted…
…like the time I used a BBC quick dinner recipe for cheesy butternut squash mash, and the mash ended up looking like bright orange sludge, with lumps of grated cheese in it.

It looked like vomit, and it made me want to vomit.

Anyway!

This recipe was super easy! I managed to do it while preparing dinner for NYBoy & I, as he wasn’t feeling well. Usually he helps out with dinner prep, but this time he just flopped on the window seat and watched.
(You can see him in the background of the cobbler picture if you look carefully.)

My housemates loved this, and I even took a couple to give to the old lady who lives alone next door

Tomorrow I’m going to attempt a cupcake version of Baked’s Sweet & Salty.

I’m going to bake all morning, and make some hummus for a university society dinner party. Head to a society AGM at 4pm. Set up the society dinner social at 6.30, kick it off at 7pm. Wrap it up hopefully 9-ish, go home, shower and get dressed for a university residence ball (if NYBoy feels a little better by then, will not go to the ball date-less!).

BUSY DAY!

Bebek;

- One of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Istanbul.
- The word for “duck” in Indonesian.
& – The love of my life.

I’ve had Bebek for as long as I can remember. And for as long as I can remember, his name has been Bebek.

Looking back on my childhood, and how much time I spent with my Indonesian maids, they must have been having a conversation about ducks when I decided that “duck” in Indonesian was a very fetching word, and would be very appropriate for my very fetching teddy bear.

In his long and illustrious life he has;

- Been brought out with me (in a seatbelt of course) and forgotten while out with me.
- Been thrown down stairs and against mattresses.
- Starred in our very own homemade Barbie soap opera’s as the very eligible bachelor who squeezed into the Barbie Ferrari and RULED THE STREETS!!!
- Flown to Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the United States, England and Scotland… all without a valid passport or the required tourist visas.

My mom used to tell me that no one would want to marry me if I kept up my obsession with a teddy bear. And I told her that if someone didn’t like Bebek, then I wouldn’t marry them. I still stick by that rule, and every so often I’ll make a point of pushing Bebek in NYBoy’s face and forcing him to kiss it.

I think he’s accepted that resisting the power of the bear will get him nothing but trouble.

A few of the places we went to:

De Taart cakeshop

The flower market

Puccini

Boyo

Kantjil

and morrreeee…..

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I am sooo sick.

On Tuesday I spent a long night dealing with really bad stomach cramps, and shivers and sweats, and baad poops. And it’s Friday, and I still have all the same symptoms, except I’m on ibuprofen so the cramps can’t bother me so much (although they still do!!)

I was about to panic and call the health service for a check up, but NYBoy went into town and spoke to someone who said that it’s a nasty bug going around. So I guess all I can do is to wait it out, and deal with being uncomfortable in the meantime.

The stomach cramps are the worst, it feels like someone’s squeezing my insides really hard at random intervals.

NOT NICE

The only upside? I am really craving banana bread – and as of right now, NYBoy is being the perfect boyfriend downstairs in the kitchen and baking me some fresh banana bread! What an angel.

Cramps are starting up again… I JUST took an ibuprofen pill like an hour ago, don’t tell me it’s worn off already?!

@11PM

Still sick. Made a trip to the memorial hospital as cramps got worse, and now I have mebeverine pills to take three times a day. I took one at 8PM and instead of getting better, I feel like I’m getting worse!!

TAKE THE MEBEVERINE AWAY, I WANT MY IBUPROFEN!!

Boys are downstairs playing poker, and I’m in bed watching TV. My abdominal pains have gotten so bad, and are so randomly occurring, that to help me deal I googled “breathing exercises during labor” haha. During labor it’s uterine muscle cramps, no? And this is (what I think is) stomach muscle cramping, both are cramping so the breathing exercises should help me?

So everytime I feel a cramp coming on I take deep breaths, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, and focus on relaxing my body. WHAT A DORK.

When very bad cramps hit, I get NYBoy to sit next to me and hold my hand. (also recommended on birthing websites, I’m just using this tip to get me some extra love while in pain)

Paris Hilton’s British best friend on ITV2… such baaadd baaaddd TV. I quote “the only thing fake about me is my boobs!”. Yeah. Okay.

Meds (inhaler + various pills), juice & hot chocolate, my Valentine’s teddy, banana bread and banana! He really made sure I had everything I could possibly need while he plays poker.

Into week 2 of semester 2, and thankfully so far (apart from my delayed Arabic oral exam..) nothing’s been incredibly hard. I’ve been managing to keep on top of work, and then some. I’m only doing two modules this semester, because that’s all I need to fulfill the yearly credit requirements, and I think they charge you for taking classes over and beyond the requirement.

Am thinking it really is a good thing that I took 3 classes last semester and 2 this semester, because now my butt is in working gear and having less to do leaves me time to do things like cook and play guitar.

My new guitar is love.

It’s not particularly expensive, but it sounds good – a lot better than any of the guitars I could have gotten in town. NYBoy ordered this one for me off the internet, and despite me not having touched a guitar probably since I left high school, this one was too pretty not to play with.

Meet Penny Black.

(It’s not just a name, I chose Penny, and the guitar is black + Penny Black is the name of an old British stamp, and NYBoy bought me the guitar using money he made from selling collectible stamps, including a few Penny Black’s)

Chillin’ with the uglies….

I have FOUR ugly dolls now! I bought two at FAO Schwarz in New York (Mission Ice Bat & Bop n Beep) and loved them so much I got two more off the internet (Deer Ugly & Regular Ice Bat).

Secret Mission Ice Bat is still my favorite, and I like making him attack the others off of his bed space, which annoys NYBoy because he seems to have grown very fond of Deer Ugly, and doesn’t like seeing it on the floor.

It’s surprising how many chords I can still remember off the top of my head! I always sucked at tabs, but even that I can sort of read… very slowly. I can play the intro to Tears in Heaven, a lot slower than Mr. Eric C, but it’s getting there. I’ve been playing maybe a week now, and nobody’s thrown something at me and told me to shut up yet, so it can’t be TOO bad.

Valentines day morning!, originally uploaded by *Hannah.

I made chocolate chip pancakes for everyone in the house, and am going to spend the rest of today scrapbooking.

Then at night, dinner at the Old Course!

Finally some snow!!!!!!!, originally uploaded by *Hannah.

This is what I woke up to, I look horrible, look at those morning eyes.

@ 11.40AM It’s still snowing outside, it figures that snow would decide to come the day I have to walk out in it to get to class! I have an Arabic lecture at 2pm – I haven’t even got my book yet. It’s a class on religious texts, which should be interesting and much better than literature…which I realllyyy hated last semester.

For breakfast after spending a little time in the snow (NYBoy throwing snowballs at people walking by and the birds in the trees), we had tea and apple cupcakes (baked yesterday!)

I used this recipe and frosted them with this. The cupcakes were more muffin-y than cupcakey, they weren’t too sweet and were really moist. I used Gala apples because I couldn’t find any Macintosh’s.

AFTER STEP 1; Just butter and sugar in there.

STEP 2; After the eggs and vanilla, coarsely grated apples thrown in on top.

STEP 3; MIXING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STEP 4; All the ingredients mixed in, including the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt mixture. Didn’t look very appetizing, but it tasted good!

DONE! Finished and frosted! The frosting was really rich, so instead of piping swirls on top, I spread a thin flat layer over each cupcake.

And I left half of them unfrosted because NYBoy said he likes them that way – so they can double up as breakfast muffins in the morning.

Overall, they were really easy to make – even the frosting was relatively easy compared to other frosting recipes out there. The cupcakes themselves weren’t very sweet, neither was the frosting.

Next time I might make half a batch and bake them in muffin cups instead of cupcake cups, for a breakfast option; or I might bake them as I did this time but frost them with something slightly sweeter.

What’s the point of a dessert that doesn’t satisfy your sweet craving?!