Spending Ban // Week 1

Something I have had to come to terms with in the last few months is the fact that I am really awful at saving money. I have always been of the opinion that I am quite good with money but nope - unfortunately that is not a thing. As much as I would like to think that I only ever spend on essentials things like food, travel and dog food, that't not really the case. Although I do spend a large chunk of my paycheck on these things there is still quite a lot of it unaccounted for. I enjoy a weekly pointless trip to Penneys where I usually come out with €20 worth of bargains that I didn't really need, eating take out food or eating out when I really cannot be bothered to cook even though I spent another €20 in Tesco the day before buying food for the fridge/cupboards and my personal favourite, taking out money from the ATM to buy one thing but spending the rest of it anyway because it was clearly burning a hole in my purse.

Upon this realization I decided to embark on a spending ban for six weeks that started on Monday the 26th of January and will end the 9th of March. Obviously I'm still going to be spending money on essential things such as food and travel, and I will be allowing myself to go out and do things if I want but I'm mainly trying to cut out pointless spending on clothes, beauty bits and take out food. I'm hoping I'll be able to give you guys weekly updates every Monday to let you know how I'm getting on and to share any tips. So here's what I've learnt on week one!

• Do a weekly food shop - This is something I had been wanting to do for a while now as I know a lot of money goes on little trips to Tesco, eating out and buying lunch when I could just make it at home. I spent €50 on food shopping on last Sunday (including buying a new wok, hurray) and managed to cook at home from scratch 5 nights of the week. I did make one additional trip to the shops to buy a Quorn lasagne after work and some baking bits but it is an improvement!
• Buy a travel card - I have a really bad habit of taking money out of my account because I don't have any for the bus but still spending the remainder on crap I didn't need. I use buses quite often and I have purchased bus passes before for the whole month but some months it's just not worth it. This month I decided to invest in a Leap Card, which is a card you top up buy as much as you like and the fare is taken off it when you scan it on the bus, fares are also 20% cheaper when you use it. Cards like these are great if you're not sure if a pass if worth the money but you don't want to be left fumbling around the change when your boyfriend can't pick you up from work.
• Avoid temptation - As I mentioned before, I really enjoy strolling into Penney's before work on a Sunday with nothing particular in mind that I need to buy but somehow I still manage to come out with a bag full of stuff. I walked in there a few weeks back and came out with a whole gym outfit, despite the fact that I have never been to a gym before in my life and haven't been since either. So in an effort to stop events like these happening I am trying to cut out window shopping and browsing completely. If I don't see all the nice things, I'll never know I needed them and be able to live without them.

So those are my top three tips for this week. Although I have had a few hiccups, one of which included a nude coloured Rimmel Apocolips, (but for less than €2,who can really blame a girl?) I am pretty proud of myself. The real test will be next week when I get paid, I may treat myself to a new camera but I'm going to call that an *essential* for the sake of my blog. 

Thank you so much for reading and let me know if you have any tips for me! 

Super Easy Jam and Cream Sponge Cake

Hello internet friends and wonderful people that have stuck around despite the fact that I haven't been around for the past five months, I have missed you all! It has been a long, busy and very eventful last few months, I am so glad I have managed to (kind of) sort my life out and finally make time for some blogging and other exciting projects. Since September my life has been super hectic and honestly, I haven't had any time to do anything that I actually want to do, like bake and blog and that just really does not do it for me. I have had so many ideas, the creative juices are well and truly flowing and I am so excited for everything to come. Thank you to everyone that has stuck around, I really appreciate it and I hope you'll all stick around for some 2015 adventures! Now onto the cake.. 

 Fun fact, up until last month I had never actually made a cake before. This recipe really could not be any more simple, very little ingredients, all of which you would almost certainly have in your cupboards and two sandwich tins! It's also a great one to use if you're looking for an easy Swiss Roll recipe, just replace the self raising flour with plain flour. This cake it a lot less airy and springy than a victoria sponge cake or a normal plain cupcake, I think that's mostly to do with how you whisk the eggs and sugar and the fact that it doesn't contain butter. It's very filling and moist, I'm terrible at describing things so you shall just have to try it for yourselves and see! I choose to use strawberry jam and cream as the filling but you can use anything you like, fresh strawberries for example would taste amazing and look great too. One of the main reasons I had never made a cake before was because I think it's really hard to distribute among friends and family and I was afraid that it wouldn't get eaten but this recipe is pretty small and you would only really get about 8 small-ish slices out it, which is perfect for my house, you don't want this hanging around for too long either because of the cream! Anyway, let's get on into it..

Ingredients:

3 eggs
90g caster sugar
90g self raising flour

For the filling:

300ml cream
4 tablespoons  jam
50g icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4/350F, grease two sandwich tins and line the bottoms with baking parchment.

2. Put the eggs and caster sugar in a large mixing bowl, whisk with an electric whisk until the mixture is pale and holds a figure of 8, basically until it's thick enough to leave a trail when the whisk is taken out. It's best if you don't stop whisking until you think it's ready.

3. Sift in the flour and fold in carefully with a spatula.

4. Divide the mixture evenly between the two tin, shake it all about a little and bang it against the counter top too get it evenly spread with no air bubbles (this is literally what I do) then place in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and the cake is beginning to come away from the sides of the tins.

5. Remove from tin, peel off the baking parchment from the bottoms and leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, spread the cream on the top of one of the sponges and the jam on the bottom of the other and sandwich them together. Use a sieve to dust some icing sugar over the top and viola, you're done!

As you can probably tell, I still haven't got a new camera. I was hoping to be able to save up enough to have a DSLR by now but that has not happened. Even though the quality of the pictures makes me want to hide and cry and not blog, I miss it waaay too much. So now I am thinking of purchasing a decent compact digital camera until I can afford a DSLR. The quality still wouldn't be as good as other bloggers but it would definitely be miles better than my phone's camera quality, what do you guys reckon?

Please comment below letting me know your favourite kinds of cake and if you try mine, tweet me a picture. Thanks for reading & happy baking! 

FOTD // The Feline Flick

I am really sorry to say that I have completed neglected my blog for the past couple of weeks, I thought it was going to be easy to work and blog but it's actually really difficult and hats off to all you ladies that manage it, you're all better women than I am.
I've had this face of the day post hanging about on my laptop for about a month now but I've lacked the inspiration to write and post it. Today though, I just got the sudden urge to blog again and I am suuuu-per happy about it, so here goes!

I started off by preparing my lips with Lush's Sweet Lips Lip Scrub, I don't think they do it in this flavour/scent but they still have many more to choose from and they are wonderful for getting rid of chapped lips. To keep my lips moisturised throughout the day I then applied Balmi Lip Balm in Coconut. I always use the same foundation, Rimmel Match Perfection in the shade "Porcelain". To conceal my under eye dark circles, I decided to go for a heavy duty concealer, Seventeen's Phwoarr Paint. Powder is a must in my make up routine, this time I decided to use Bourjois Healthy Balance Powder. At this stage I need to liven up and put a bit of colour back into my cheeks, I did so using a No7 blush that I have had in my make up collection for far too long. Onto the eyes, I started by lining my tightline with the Rimmel Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil. The only eyeshadow palette I keep in my make up bag is the Make Up Revolution Iconic 3 palette, I dusted the fourth shade all over my lid and then used the seventh colour in the outer corners. I've really been loving felt tip liners at the moment so I used this one from Collection to create a feline flick. Last but not least, to finish off the look I coated my lashes with Maybelline's the Rocket Volum' Mascara. 

The Perfect Sunday

I must admit, I've never been the biggest lover of Sundays. Not until I started working weekends that is. Since this Sunday, probably as you're reading this, I am going to be at work, I thought I'd tell you a few of my favourite things to do on a Sunday, a weekend or just a day off.

Walks 

With the pup and the boy. This is one of my absolute favourite things ever, as I'm sure I've mentioned before. There's nothing better than getting away for the afternoon with your favourite people and usually a picnic in our case.

Lazing About

Luckily, I did have last Sunday off work so the boy and I took to the couch armed with our duvet, lots of goodies and a laptop and that is where we remained for the duration of the day. We watched "Monty Python Live (Mostly)" and You've Got Mail. If you've never seen Monty Python before, I would highly recommend that you spend  your Sundays watching all of them because they are the most stupid, most hilarious thing you will ever watch and it is wonderful. 

Baking 

I don't think this will come as I surprise to any of you but I love to bake. If there's ever a day when I can spend the whole day baking, I will usually experiment and try new recipes. Sometimes they don't always work out so at least I know I will have time to bake an old trusty favourite.

Organising 

I left this one until last because I feel like it may be a bit of a weird one. On Sundays, I like to sit down with my notebook and plan out the week ahead. I'm one of those people that when they have too much going on in their head at once it just gets very full and I begin to feel quite overwhelmed. It's good for me to write out what my plan for the week is, maybe some meal planning and blog posts. 

So there you go, just a few of my favourite things that occupy my Sundays. I hope you've all had a wonderful week & you're enjoying your Sunday. What are some of your favourite weekend things? 

Super Gooey Chocolate Brownies

Happy Friday to you all! It dawned on me last week that I haven't actually shown you guys my favourite baked treat before. They have been featured on a guest post over on the lovely Lizzie's blog but I've never put them on my blog. As they are my favourite thing to bake and by far my favourite thing to eat, I had to share the recipe with you guys.

 I mentioned last night on Twitter that there's nothing more satisfying than having a tin full of homemade brownies. As I'm writing this post, I am so tempted to sneak downstairs and have another one, I will try and refrain from doing so as it's just gone 11pm. If I don't just cut them up and eat them straight away, I put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds, they come out all gooey, warm and chocolatey, like they have just come out of the oven.

I made brownies in my Minnie Mouse Silicone cake mould last week and they were super adorable, I posed a picture of those on Instagram if you fancy a look! However, that didn't turn out to be very practical as it involved baking four individual brownies, so it took about three hours in total. Some of the brownie also got stuck inside so all but one kind of failed. I usually just bake them in a square baking tin, as shown above. I line the tin with greaseproof paper and leave two flaps at either side so it's super easy to lift out of the tin when they come out of the oven. As you can see here, I had to use tin foil this week as I forgot to buy greaseproof paper, it worked fine too though! This recipe makes about 12 portions and I promise you after trying this once, it will be your go to brownie recipe!

Ingredients:

300g caster sugar
3 eggs
200g dark chocolate
200g butter
70g plain flour
1tsp baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4, line a square baking tin with greaseproof paper and grease the rest of the tin with butter. 

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs.

3. In a second bowl, break the chocolate into small chunks, cut the butter into cubes and microwave until melted. Do this in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each to make sure you don't burn the chocolate.

4. Once slightly cooled, add the chocolate mixture to the first bowl. Stir in until everything is completely combined. 

5. Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold in gently. Try not to stir the mixture. 

6. Pour into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes. I find that the trick of putting a knife into cakes to see if they're cooked doesn't really work with brownies as you want them to still be slightly gooey inside. So bake until the edges start to come away from the sides of the tin. 

I hope you'll all give these brownies a go and be sure to tweet me if you do. Happy baking!