2011 according to You'll get what you're given!

Inspired by Betty Bee and her new year post I thought I'd do a little 2011 round up.

This has been a year of new experiences and learning new things. It started in January when we started looking for a new house and approached the bank about getting a mortgage, those felt like scary times but it turned out we had nothing to worry about!  I also passed my first aid course in January and had a great night out with Emma and Dee!

By February we had decided on the house we wanted put an offer in and it was accepted! I was so excited! I also went to see Roddy Woomble in Wales.

I also went to see Jonny at the Harley.

March was a crazy one at work but going to see Elbow at Sheffield Arena more than made up for that!

In April my Sister, her boyfriend and my Mum all went to see the Jim Jones Revue at the Plug in Sheffield, the gig was great rock and roll fun.

This was also the month when I went to my first Steel City Roller Girls bout, they lost but I was hooked! It was also the month when I went with my Mum and sister to Amsterdam for a week.  I hadn't been before but I enjoyed every minute of it... well nearly I got stuck on a tram once and got left behind on the tram platform another time... but other than that it was great!

In May I started practising for a bellydancing show and spent a lot of my free time trying to sort out arrangements for buying the house. June, however was slightly more interesting! In June my poor old Micra started to die and I ended up buying my Corsa for myself as a birthday present.  I also danced in my first and possibly only bellydancing show, as I got half the moves wrong.  It was great fun though! We ended the week with a road trip in the new car down to Bristol to see our friends and then to Cornwall to see The Flaming Lips play the Eden Project.

 

Then in July I started writing this blog, went to another roller derby bout, watched Dylan Moran, me and my boyfriend signed the contract for our house! I also went to Nottingham to celebrate my sister's birthday and caught a few bands at Tramlines! To round off the month we finally got the keys to our first house.

August was then mainly spent packing up our flat, getting the electrics sorted in the house and doing the odd bit of decorating. We finally moved in early September and then celebrated watching the Kat Jackson Group play The Plug and then the next week we went to the Leadmill to watch Slow Club.

I also had my first taste of Nottingham's cake club in September and hope to go again at some point next year!

I didn't go to any gigs in October but I did go to my first Spa! I went with one of my friends for her birthday and then followed it up with mini burgers at Bungalows and Bears. Yummy! The next week myself and my partner celebrated our 7 year anniversary with a trip to The Bay of Bengal Indian Restaurant which did great food.
November was mainly a month of staying in and trying to do NaNoWriMo.  It was my first attempt at writing a novel so I decided to jump in at the deep end! By the end of the month I managed to write 47,000 words which is the most I've ever managed.  As well as trying to write a novel I also had one of my friends visit and we went to see Bellowhead at the Leadmill.

I wasn't entierly sure what to expect beforehand but was pleasantly surprised!

Last but not least December! This month of preparing for Christmas whilst also looking into the New Year, despite all that I found time to sing Carols at The Greystones and take my dad to see the Lancashire Hotpots!

It was a good laugh!

Now December is almost done but I'm going to try and get just one more gig in! Wish me luck!


I hope 2011 treated you all well and that 2012 is even better for you! Happy New Year from You'll Get What You're Given!

52 Recipe Challenge - Week 25.

So weeks 23 and 24 seemed to fly by and before I know it I’m sat here once more writing about why I’ve neglected the blog for what seems like the fifth or sixth time. It might not be new year yet but keeping up with the blog is high on my resolution list! Worry not I have done a recipe this week!

Whilst I’ve been away from the blog I have been out and about sampling the hot chocolate and chocolate cake in the Blue Moon cafe as well as the cocktails at The Wick at Both Ends.

They are as good as they look in the picture! I’ve also watched The Lancashire Hotpots with my Dad, panic bought Christmas presents and started trying to sort out my house for Christmas.

This week I decided to make some cupcakes which have intrigued me for a while the Malted Cupcakes in the: Cupcakes from the PrimroseBakery book. I decided to make these partly because they looked nice and partly because I had some Fluff, an American make which is a kind of marshmallow stuff you can get in jars; which looked like it would work as a topping.

To make this you need:

110g butter

120g light brown sugar

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

185g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

50g Ovaltine

125ml semi skimmed milk (the recipe says at room temperature but I’m not sure why.)

½ teaspoon vanilla flavouring

1 tablespoon sour cream

The remainder of a jar of fluff or according to the recipe a batch of marshmallow or chocolate buttercream icing.

To start off I turned on my oven to preheat and then got out my muffin tin and lined it.

Next I measured out my dry ingredients the flour, baking powder and ovaltine and then sifted them into my mixing bowl.

Whilst doing this Frankenstein the cat came along to see what I was doing.

I stopped to tell him that the cakes weren’t for cats before measuring my caster sugar then the soft brown sugar, once I did this I weighed the butter and put the lot in the food processor.

Then I then mixed them together.

As the sugar and butter were mixing I got the bottle of milk out and poured 125ml into  the measuring jug and then returned the rest of the bottle to the fridge. When I did this I stopped the sugar and butter mixing then checked the mix before scooping the stray bits down with a spatula.  When it the butter and sugar seemed creamed together enough I added the first egg, mixed that in then I added the other one and finished mixing it. After I did this I double checked the recipe and reduced the oven heat from the top heat down to: 180c/ Gas mark 4.

Next I got the sour cream from the fridge and spooned the remnants of the tub into the milk, (I had eaten the rest with nachos the night before) and then added the vanilla flavouring before stirring it all together as best I could. When I checked the measuring jug I realised that the fluid in the measuring jug had gone up too much and that I couldn’t add it all in to the mix.

Once I mixed the milk, sour cream and vanilla flavouring together I took this along with the flour mix to the food processor. I started off by pouring a little flour to the mix about a third as the recipe suggested and stirred it together in the food processor.

When that was combined I added a  bit of the milk and sour cream and stirred it up.  The recipe said to add a third of the milk mix too but I thought this wasn’t the best idea when I had too much liquid.

Then I repeated this process until I had no flour and 50ml of the milk and sour cream mix left and all the ingredients were combined, when this was done I used a tablespoon to spoon the mix into my muffin cases and put them in the oven. After I put this batch in the oven I set the timer to 25 minutes and looked at my food processor mixing bowl and saw that I still had loads left so I got out my bun tin, lined that and filled those too.

When the timer went off I checked on my muffin sized cupcakes and as they were ok took them out of the oven and swapped them with the buns.  When all of the cupcakes were cooked I put them on the side to cool.

Then I  smeared Mashmallow Fluff on top of most of them as icing until it ran out.  I then delved into my cupboards, pulled out my stash of Malteasers and crunched a few of them up on top of the iced cupcakes then finished them off by putting a whole Malteaser on each of them.

These cupcakes took a bit more faffing to make that most of my baking and I think I like things you can just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix thogether the best; however, they did go down well with the people most of the people I shared them with. Which is great because this recipe made loads!

That's partly because the recipe assumes you have a 12 hole muffin tin which I don't so I ended up with 18 cupcakes, 6 large & 12 bun sized but as they were very tasty I think they may have to be made again for a special occasion in the future.