Pumpkin Spiced Pumpkin Cake 🎃

OK first off I know many of you won’t have time to go all out and make an almost real looking pumpkin, but that’s OK! Just make the cake and serve with the glaze of your choice, slather it in buttercream,or eat it plain with some tea!

Ingredients:

For The Cake-

• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons milk, room temperature
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla Extract 
• 1 ¼ cups (150 grams)  flour
• 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (150 grams) caster sugar
• 3/4 cup (150 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves

For the Buttercream-

• 550 gms confectioner's sugar / Icing Sugar
• 250 gmssalted butterroom temp ( you can even use 1/2 butter and 1/2 vegetable shortening)
•  2 tbsp cold milk 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• orange food coloring & Black Food Coloring

Fondant-

• Orange Ready To Roll Fondant 
• Green Ready To Roll Fondant 

Tools-

• Measuring Cups
• knife for carving the cake
• Mixing Bowl
• Whisk
• Weighing Scale
• Measuring Spoons 
• Bundt Pan
• Cooling Wrack 
• Turn Table 
• Pallet Knife 
• Cake Side Scraper 
• Electric Mixer/ Hand Mixer
• Rolling Pin

Lets Get Started!

For The Cake-

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C and place rack in center of oven. 
2. Grease and dust 2 small Bundt Pans. 
3. Sift flour with baking powder and keep aside.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.
5. In your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Beat in the eggs, gradually, until well combined adding a tbsp of flour with first addition
6. add the flour a little at a time
7. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, Bake for about 35 minutes  or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. 
8. Remove the cakes from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes.
9.  Remove the cakes from the pan and cool completely on a lightly buttered wire rack.

For the Buttercream-

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy. 
2. Add vanilla and then slowly add sugar. 
3. Add milk a few tablespoons at a time until desired consistency is reached. (If want a stiffer buttercream, use less milk.)
4. Divide the buttercream for the filling and for covering there cake
5. Add in the food coloring, black for the filling and orange for covering the cake!

For the Assembly:

1. Cut bottoms off cakes.
2. Smear buttercream frosting onto bottoms. Sandwich together.

3.Depending on the shape bundt pan you use, you may need to contour the outside using a knife to sculpt into a pumpkin shape.
4.Cover in orange buttercream. Refrigerate to help the sculpting process.

5.For the final smoothing chill the pumpkin in the freezer and use the back of a spoon dipped in hot water.

               

6.Roll out some Orange fondant.

7. Drape onto the Cake.

8. Smooth out with your finger to give it some shape.

9. kneed some green fondant and shape to to form a stem for the pumpkin

10.Add stem to the top of the pumpkin. 

11. To give it a more realistic look you can shade the fondant with some Orange, brown and Green Petal Dust!

                                         

            

              

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃👻

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Too Faced Natural Love Palette Review

I bet the cat ladies out there will feel me on this! There’s a shade in the Too Faced Natural Love Palette called Kittens!

In this large but slim cardboard packaging printed with gorgeous hand-drawn illustrations of flowers, bunnies, and birds The Too Faced Natural Love Ultimate Neutral Eye Shadow Collection  is a 30-shadow palette with 7 matte, 13 shimmer and 10 sparkle shades., but yes, of course, Kittens was the first one I got on my lids. 

I would have preferred a metal or plastic compact but I can see how that can get quite bulky for a 30-shade palette...

The Palette offers up a very nice range of pinks, peaches, and browns. In terms of the overall quality, the palette is pretty nice! The majority of the mattes are soft and creamy while the shimmers are pigmented and buttery smooth.

They also blend together like a dream, which is perfect for those of us who aren’t that great at applying eyeshadow (raises hand slowly and looks to see if anyone is doing the same thing…)

However, a few of the sparkles and darker colors are a bit chalky or fallout-prone!

[The best way to combat this is to do your eye makeup before your face makeup so you can easily sweep away the fallout. Once the shadows are on the eyes there shouldn’t be much of an issue concerning fallout throughout the rest of the day.]

If you already own a lot of Too Faced palettes or neutral palettes from other brands, then the Natural Love Palette is probably not a necessity. Also, a few of the shades.... the browns, in particular, are quite repetitive, making me wish that Too Faced was a bit more creative with the colors. 

I personally feel like this palette will work for most people that do natural makeup looks more frequently. 

You really get  a ton of product in this one, so it will likely last you the rest of your life!

The price for this one is more than fair if you enjoy most of the shades in this palette. 

You can put together so many different looks and it is truly a complete palette. 

There really isn’t much to complain about with this guy. The packaging is very pretty, but not very sturdy. 

It is possible that it might not be great to travel with. 

Since the packaging is light pink with velvet lettering it is prone to getting dirty. 

There are always some shadows in every palette that fall a little flat, but all of these shadows are workable

I’ve used the Natural Love palette every day since I’ve had it, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon! 

Other products in the pictures-

Too Faced Natural Love Eyeshadow Palette- Too Faced 

Pink Quartz Crystal- Celestial Kitten

Wonder Hand Cream- Zoella  (Superdrug)

Blushing Hearts Blush- I Heart MakeUp  (Also available on amazon)

Blossom Lip Gloss- Urban Outfitters

Make Up Brush- Spectrum

Le Fizz Bar- Zoella (Superdrug) 

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Pink Grapefruit Lemonade

Lightly Sweetened Grapefruit Juice & Lemonaid, This Refreshing Recipie is litrally Perfect for any Season!

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar/ Honey 

2 cups Water

1/2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice,+ 1 lemon, cut into thin rounds, for garnish!

2 cups freshly squeezed pink-grapefruit juice, (3 large grapefruits)

Ice 

Tools-

Measuring Cups

knife

Lemon Squeezer
Orange Squeezer
Whisk

Saucepan

Bowl

Lets Get Started!

1.In a large bowl, prepare an ice bath.

2.In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.

3.Stir well and set over medium heat & bring it to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until all of the sugar has dissolved.

4.Pour the sugar syrup into a bowl and set the bowl in the ice bath to cool. 

5.Pour the sugar syrup, grapefruit juice, and lemon juice into a pitcher, and stir to incorporate the drink.

6. Top with crushed ice. 

7.Garnish the drink with lemon and grapefruit rings and serve immediately! 

                          

               

                         

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Rocky Road Brownies

There Really Is Nothing Better Than Rocky Road Brownie. So, Let’s Do This!

Ingredients:

Brownie Base-

½ cup Butter

1 cup Dark Chocolate 

1 cup Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

3/4 cup Flour

1 tbsp. Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Oil- For Grassing Tin

Rocky Road Topping-

1/4 Cup Chopped Almonds

1/4 Cup Chopped Walnuts 

1/2 Cup Dark Chocolate Chips

1 Cup Mini Marshmallows / Chopped Marshmallows

Tools-

Steel Mixing Bowl

Spatula

8x8 Inch Square Cake Tin / Brownie Tin

Measuring Cups

Measuring Spoons

Cake Needle

Whisk

Aluminium Foil or Parchment Paper

Wire Rack

Lets Get Baking!

1.Preheat Oven at 160c, Prepare 8 x 8 Brownie Pan by lining the sides 

and bottom with parchment paper or aluminium foil.

2.Lightly grease the foil or paper with oil.

3.Melt the chocolate and butter in a large stainless steel mixing bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water. 

4.Remove from heat and whisk in the sugar.

5.Whisk in the eggs and vanilla.

6.Finally, stir in the flour & cocoa powder

7.Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes,

or until a cake needle inserted into the centre has a few moist crumbs clinging to it.

8.Pull out the brownie from the oven and lightly sprinkle the rocky road topping on it and put the brownie back in the oven.

9. Bake for another 5 minutes 

or just until the marshmallows start to melt!

10.Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

11.Once cool, remove the brownies from the pan by lifting with the ends of the foil and transfer to a cutting board. 

12.With a sharp knife, cut into 16 squares. 

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