Raspberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

These honies are the cupcakes I made for the Jubilee weekend , and so can of course be made without the out and out British decorations (although I have a bit of a soft spot for them!) . They are so raspberry-y and the raspberry frosting is super sweet but super scrum.

For this recipe you will need:

110g self-raising flour

110g caster sugar

110g butter and (35g for icing)

2 eggs (at room temperature)

200g white chocolate drops

3 packs of raspberries

275g icing sugar

Pre-heat oven to: 180'C

1. Cream together the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer if possible, and continue to beat until its light and fluffy and all the sugar has dissolved.

2. Add eggs one by one and thoroughly beat in to the mixture.

3. Next, sift the self raising flour and gently fold in making sure you dont knock the air out of the flour.

4. Roughly chop up 1 pack of raspberries into halves and quarters.


5. Toss the 1 pack of chopped up raspberries and your chocolate drops into some flour just so it coats them (this stops them from sinking to the bottom of the cakes)

6. Now simply chuck in your raspberries and chocolate drops into your mixture and just gently fold.

7. Spoon the mixture evenly into cupcake cases in a cupcake baking tray.

8. Spoon any left over mixture into your mouth.

9. Put the cakes in the oven and leave for 15-20 minutes.

The Icing:

10. Push your remaining two packs of raspberries through a sieve, leaving the seeds separate from the juice (no one wants seedy frosting!)

11. Beat your butter for your icing till its nice and soft and then add the juice from the raspberries and put in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to harden slightly.

12. Give it a good stir and sift in half of your icing sugar and beat well. Sift in the rest, depending on how runny your icing is you may need to add a little more icing sugat. Then... hey presto! stupidly scrumptious pink raspberry buttercream frosting ready to be  devoured on its own  piped on to your cakes.

13. After 15 minutes, check your cakes- they should be ready at about 17 minutes but all ovens vary, your looking for a nice rise, golden on top and when you stick in a skewer/knife it comes out clean. When they're done, remove from the oven and put onto a cooling rack.

14. Making sure the cakes are thoroughly cooled before you ice them, otherwise the icing will melt, you can now use your artistic licence and ice how you like. I opted for piping, but like I say do as you will and experiment!

Enjoy!

It Is Said That One Fifth Of The World's Cranes are in Dubai

Whether this is a rumour or not, there are many a crane in Dubai.

But despite this, the City boasts some beautiful sites, some of which I thought I would share with you...

 From Top to Bottom - Camel Rides, Burj Al Arab, Footprints on Jumeriah Beach, Moi, Bloomingdales, The Aquarium in Dubai Mall, and the Burj Khalifa.

I'm flying home tomorrow night and although I will be happy to get back to London Town, I will as ever, miss this place and its unique charm...

Nice To Meet You

For a while now I have enjoyed a few lifestyle blogs which I read religiously, and others (mostly food-orientated) that I dip in and out of, and have been toying with the idea of creating my own. However, having been in my final year of Uni, meant that for the past couple of months I became a resident of the library and had no time whatsoever for anything unrelated to my work, which also meant I had nothing to blog about…niente...nada!

BUT now that I have finished, well now it’s a whole different story.

You will of course get to know me and get to know what makes me tick, but for now my name is Chloe, I am 21, fresh out of University, brought up in Kent and now I live in London.

I wanted to create a personal lifestyle blog, documenting bits and bobs from my life including cooking and baking which I adore, whilst taking a keen interest into health and nutrition, so expect recipe posts to be a mixture of naughty and not-so-naughty concoctions. Food aside, I want to take you in and around London from dawn till dusk and keep you up to speed with my musings of the moment, and perhaps introduce you to some of my friends along the way.

As a newbie, I would of course really appreciate any feedback, comments or recommendations as I wanna give you my best shot!

I hope you enjoy reading it, and let me know what you think as time goes on.

So here goes...