Pumpkin Cupcakes

After making a Pumpkin Loaf I had half a tin of Pumpkin left and chose to make some pumpkin cupcakes, which proved to be a hit in this house. As they looked pretty and tasted pretty damn good I thought I would share how I made them.

What you will need:

Cake:

220g Plain Flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

135g light brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 can pumpkin

120g Vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Cream cheese icing:

75g butter

100g cream cheese

Vanilla essence 

175g icing sugar.

To begin with you want to get the boring things out the way: Line the cupcake tin (I used these Orange cases I found in Wilko...to go with the pumpkin was the idea) and pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.

1. You will need two bowls for this. In one bowl place the flour, bicarb of soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon - mix together and place to one side for now.

2. In another bowl mix together brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla until the mixture is remotely smooth.

3. Once everything is mixed, slowly add in the dry ingredients to the wet and mix all together.

Once everything is done place the mixture into the cases and pop into the oven for 15-20 mins.

Icing:

I have never made cream cheese icing before so this was exciting to try.

1. Add the butter into the bowl and mix on its own for a while until its quite smooth.

2. Next add in your cream cheese add in your vanilla and mix - I used a hand mixer (non electric) fast

3. slowly add in the icing sugar to the butter and cream cheese and like before mix everything fast. (You dont have to thats what I did and found it worked better than your usual mixing with a wooden spoon).

3.Place the cream cheese icing into a pipping bag and decorate your cakes, for decorations I found some 'Chocolate beans' by Dr. Oetker and picked out the yellow and orange ones. If you want Halloween decorations for the top of your cakes you get some great Halloween cake decoration in ASDA.

I love these cakes so much, let me know if you try them and what you think.

Chocolate Chip Scone

Oh my goodness! Its another baking post!

This wont be the last, I hope to do some Halloween themed baking posts!

Something my family love to eat are scones, I like cheese compared to plain scones and I recently decided to try something different....Chocolate chip scones! These are my favourite scones and I just had to share them on the blog....lets get into it!

What you will need:

225g Self raising flour

50g cold butter

Pinch of salt

120ml Milk

100g Chocolate Chips

Round tin

1. To begin with get the boring stuff out of the way, pre heat your oven to 220 degrees and line or grease your tin.

2. Measure out the flour and salt and place into the mixing bowl followed by the butter.

3. Now this is where things start to get messy, Rub together the butter and flour using your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

4. Add the milk to the mixture and stir everything together. Once everything is mixed add in the chocolate chips and knead the dough in the bowl folding in the chocolate chips.

(It will look like a lot of Chocolate chips for scones but believe me its worth it they are yum!)

5. Place the dough straight into the round tin, spread it out slightly and pop it into the oven for 12-15mins and then done!!

Enjoy baking!! 

Leave a comment if you try these, I would love to know!

High Street Vintage

Do you love Vintage clothes, but hate some of the prices?

Well visit your local Sainsburys and then your in luck, for some inspired vintage pieces.

(I tried to write that like an old advert)

I love 40/50/60s - Everything from the Music to the homeware, but something I love the most is the clothes. Whilst with my mum shopping in Sainsburys a while back I noticed a lot of dresses and skirts all inspired by the 40's and 50's- The style, cut and prints. Now Sainsburys isn't somewhere everyone would look for clothes and especially someone my age, but Sainsburys have some great pieces- Especially if you, like me like vintage.

These are two of my favourite things I have picked up from Sainsburys. The white skirt is a perfect summer piece with the light fabrics and lovely floral pattern - I picked this up in one of there half price sales fro £9. Another favourite is this black dress covered in yellow and orange parrots, again light fabric perfect for summer but also transitional into autumn and winter - This again was picked  up in one of there half price sales but I cant remember the price. Both skirts on these come just above the knee and perfect for creating a circle when you spin around - key....
Neither of these two things are still available as far as I am aware but Sainsburys do some nice dresses with a 40's and 50's feel - I have my eye on a navy spotty tea dress.

1940 and 50's are two of my favourite eras for clothes and hair, and I love looking at original vintage pieces of clothes until I see some of the prices. I think really, with vintage clothes shopping you have to go to the right places to get the bargains, some places throw any old price on things just because of the era its from.

I like to scroll through Pinterest as well as Instagram all the time to gain vintage outfit inspiration. To then create something which is inspired by the images I have found. Both outfits above are inspired by 50's and the other call the midwife (so still 50's), Yellow floral dress I picked up in Next a while ago, I dressed this up with vintage inspired accessories as well as some vintage hair. Whilst I posed with the Tardis at Chatham Dockyards I wore some dark black and purple tartan trousers (Primark) and a white knit jumper (charity shop), Inspired by an outfit Jenny Lee wore in Call the Midwife.

I am always looking out for some vintage inspired pieces in high street shops as well as charity shops that are inexpensive - Sainsburys is the best in my opinion for inspired pieces.

Know anywhere to get some affordable vintage pieces?
Leave places in the comments.