Christmas day OOTD | Present Haul | Other Antics

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you have all had/having a lovely day. If you don't celebrate Christmas I hope you are having a great 25th of December.

OOTD

Here is what I wore for the day. After I stayed in my PJ's for opening the presents in the morning.

 Black Dress - New Look £25

Silver Bow - New Look £3

Necklace - Accessorize  - A present from my friend Helen

Present Haul

I am very grateful for all of my gift's. I feel very loved and I appreciate everyone's generosity and kindness.

 Great British Bake off Big Book of Big Baking - I have only read a few pages and some of the recipes look delicious, I can't wait to make them.

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler - I am very excited to read this book. I have read some good reviews.

The Little Mermaid - My favourite film when I was a kid. I had it on VHS but never got it on DVD but now I do. I am very happy about it.

Hemp Hand Protecting body shop - I love this hand cream, I use it all the time as I get sore hands and can't really use any other hand cream. I think this is really great for me.

Other Antics

Our living room was such a mess after all the unwrapping of six people but that's all part of the fun! 

 Till dinner we watched films and snoozed. My brother looks so cute (he will kill me later).

My dad did 'napkin face' at dinner to much hilarity.

Dinner Time

Not a brussel sprout in site (for me). My Dad cooked us a lovely meal, we had great company, lovely conversion, if not a bit weird sometimes. That's what our family is like.

Spent the rest of the night watching Doctor Who, Miranda and Call the Midwife. We Skyed with our family that is in New Zealand. Over all it was a pretty perfect day.

I hope you all have a wonderful day. Hope to hear from you soon.

If you didn't have such a great day or if you were working as my cousin was in a hospital. You can spend time with your family or with your friends on any day and make it a special time. It doesn't matter what day it is on. 

Rachel xxx

Christmas Eve OOTD and Other Antics

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!!!

Thought I would do a quick Christmas Eve OOTD (outfit of the day).

Red Shirt from Primark - £13

TRXYE sweatshirt from District Lines - $39.99 

Black jeans from H&M - £20

The weather today was horrid! The only positive thing about it was there was a beautiful Rainbow!

Me being weird with my friend Helen.

I love spending time with my friends doing this fun activity on Christmas eve! We might make it into a tradition as I don't really have many traditions with my friends, I think this might be a fun one.

My Grandparents are staying with us for Christmas which is loads of fun too. Me, my brother and my Grandpa all had our Christmas jumpers on all cosy watching Christmas films. 

I will leave you with this sort video of me and Helen running like mad through the rain to get to the ice skating, wasn't really what we had planned but it was an experience. When we arrived my friend Emma asked if I had just got out the shower!

Hope you are all having a great Christmas Eve! Let me know what you are up to. Rachel xxx

How to Ice a Christmas Cake for Beginners

I was going to call this one 'How to Ice a Christmas Cake for people that don't know what they are doing - like me' but I decided it was too long.

I am really not a professional baker or cake decorator by any means but I do enjoy making cakes with as little hassle and frustration as possible. Here is a quick tutorial of what I did to decorate this years Christmas cake.

I started off by buying the fruit cake. I know this seems like the lazy option but realistically I thought it would be the guaranteed way that it would turn out well. In other years I have made the cake months in advance which is what you are supposed to do but I was just not organised this year. I also had to get a gluten free cake because a member of my family is allergic to gluten. I did not want to make a gluten free cake from scratch as I thought it would be a difficult thing to get right.

I got a cheap and cheerful marzipan to cover both cakes.

Then I just kneaded it for about a minute till it was soft enough to roll out. I put some icing sugar on the surface and the rolling pin so it wouldn't stick. 

 I rolled out the whole block into a circle a bit bigger than the actual cake. My home economics teacher at school taught me that if  you turn the icing/marzipan 90 degrees after every up and down roll it will be a more or less perfect circle and won't stick to the surface.

Next I melted a little bit of strawberry jam so the marzipan will stick to the cake.  I know traditionally you are supposed to use apricot jam but this was what I already had and if I bought apricot it will never get used till next year.

I melted the jam in the microwave instead of in a saucepan cause it was less washing up. I also just used the back of the spoon to spread it around the top and sides of the cake. You can use one of those pastry brushes if you want to be fancy, but I don't own one.

Putting the marzipan on if by far the hardest bit. You just need to get your whole hands and arms under it and plop it on. Sounds easy right? At the end of the day if you mess up it wont be seen under the icing.

Then I just cut of the extra and used it to cover the sides of the gluten free cake.

I left the marzipan on the cake to dry out for about a day before I started the icing. You don't really need to do this. I just thought it was easier when it was a bit harder.

For the royal icing I loosely followed a Mary Berry recipe. I used three egg whites, all the juice I could get out of this lemon and a ton of icing sugar. The recipe said 675g of icing sugar but I added a few extra spoonfuls. The recipe also says add glycerine but I left it out and it turned out fine. I think it just gives it more of a shine.

Apart from that I followed the recipe. I wanted to make sure the icing would hold it's shape so I added more icing sugar (you can't really add too much).

I spread the icing over the cake just using a butter  knife. You can use one of those big pallet knifes but I found this just as easy.

 I then used the tip of the knife to add this spiky affect and added some decorations.

 For the other cake I went with this up and down wavy pattern. I just did by dragging the knife lightly though the icing.

 I still need to find a nice board to put the cakes on but apart from that you just need to leave it to dry out for a bit then eat with mulled wine or a hot chocolate or whatever festive delight takes your fancy.

Baking and decorating doesn't always have to be really complicated as long as you are okay with cutting corners to get a similar result that no one is going to notice apart from Paul Hollywood.

Rachel xxx

Winter Wonderland Edinburgh

Today I got to hang out with my best friend that I have not seen in ages! I was very excited to see her. I enjoyed retelling all our stupid inside jokes and annoying her mostly, that's what best friends do right? They can get away with that sort of thing. We had a grand old time grabbing a milkshake, wondering round the shops and Winter Wonderland. There is something truly magical about Edinburgh at this time of year. Here are a few snaps and a video of some random banter throughout the day. Enjoy! 

Rachel xxx

True Meaning of Christmas....?

Gifts? Family? Friends? Giving? Christ?

These days Christmas has so many different meanings to many different people. 

 We all know how easy it is to get caught up in the commercialised side of Christmas. Like I said yesterday I am no Scrooge. I love walking around Winter Wonderland soaking up the atmosphere with a Hot Chocolate, looking at all the trinkets and people trying not to fall over on the ice rink.

I love hanging out with my friends and family at this time of year where you are forced to be in a room that is too small for the amount of people. You are listening to your brother and grandpa arguing about the latest advance in technology. Your Granny is telling you about her newest knitting pattern and you are telling the rest of the people in the room about a really interesting concept you read in a book recently when you know no one else really cares (just me?). I just love it. I have been trying to figure out why I love it. It's just one of those things you start to appreciate when you get older (just to be clear I am only 20, I know that sentence makes me sound like I'm 60).

Despite all that happiness and contempt it doesn't take much for that bubble to pop. Well for me it doesn't. Turning over to the news in the middle of a Christmas film. Walking past a homeless person when Christmas shopping. Reading about horrific stories of abuse in the middle of browsing Tumblr. I immediately feel guilty about everything I have and that I am able to have such an enjoyable time when there is so much suffering. In other years I have been able to block it out and continue in this festive universe where nothing bad happens but this year I am facing reality more and more. How do you deal with it? 

For me that is where Christ comes in. This week I felt particularly bad watching the news about the Sydney siege. I think a situation like this where there is loss it causes people to ask questions about God such as 'How can God let this happen' 'Why doesn't God stop the suffering?'. For me it does the opposite it answers my questions 'How can we heal from this?' 'How can we move on from what is broken?'. For me the answer is Christ. I understand that not everyone will agree with me but it is where I seek my comfort in a season which is about the coming of a savour where we are supposed to be cheerful and happy but the suffering doesn't go away.

 Sorry this wasn't the most light hearted of posts but it has been on my mind for the last few days. The next post will not be quite so serious.

Rachel xxx

All Wrapped up!

Hello Blogger Friends!

Long time no blog! I apologise if I have made that joke before, I have not got time to look through all my previous failed come backs. 

Two people mentioned to me today how much they missed my blog. Considering I have not even thought about my blog for many months I took it as a sign that I should start back up again.

Today I got one of my least favourite Christmas jobs out of the way, wrapping. 

It's not that I am ungrateful! I love the opportunity to give gifts to the people I love to show how much I appreciate them. It's the actual wrapping I don't enjoy all that much. I find it very stressful to sit for hours battling with scissors, tape and paper. The finished product never quite turns out how you'd hoped and there is always that one person that turns up with the perfectly wrapped present with extra ribbon and glitter making it look effortless and they claim to actually enjoy the process. Maybe it's my lack of patients or my over all worry that the person I am wrapping for might not like the present but whatever it is I like to get it out of the way as soon as possible. 

To make the experience as stress free as possible I made sure I had the right supplies to keep me going, this includes tea in my favourite mug, enough chocolate to keep me sane (I did have to consume the whole bag of Cadbury's Dairy Milk) and believe it or not I am no Scrooge so my favourite Christmas film was on. The Grinch. Such and epic film in so many ways.

It was a such a relief to finally see all the gifts under the tree. Done and dusted on the 17th of December with a whole week to go before Christmas! I would consider that a special achievement. 

What about you? Does wrapping stress you out or are you one of those creative types that enjoy making their gift into an art piece that will inevitably get ripped open in 30 seconds? 

It's the thought that counts right?

Rach xxx