Cupcakes, Cookies and Milkshakes in Newcastle

Hey lovelies,

Last weekend I headed up to Newcastle to visit my sister and one of our old family friends, and I just have to show you the amazing little cupcake and milkshake place we found!

After having lunch in Pitcher and Piano on the river, we started to think about where we could get some cakes, and my sister recommended a place her friend had told her about.

If you walk along the river, past the Millenium bridge and up into the centre you'll quickly come across a little place called the Great British Cupcakery, and it's officially my new favourite place for desserts.

The interior is so cute, it has mirrors, flowers and little quotes everywhere

But best of all are the amazing cakes and milkshakes that you can get, so we grabbed a table and ordered ourselves some treats

One look at these milkshakes and you know you're in heaven. My sister had a vanilla milkshake with crème pâtissière and a profiterole on the top, and I had a cookie milkshake, which had nutella all over the jar, freshly whipped cream and cookies all over it.

I couldn't believe my eyes when they were brought to our table, dessert heaven!

We found them impossible to finish so I definitely recommend having one of these for your meal rather than after it! But if you're like us and don't even come close to finishing then they do have paper take out cups so you can finish it later!

If you're ever in Newcastle, it's definitely worth the visit!

Have you ever been to the great british cupcakery? 

Where is your favourite place to go for sweet treats?

Love, Amylou x

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Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Hey guys!

I meant to post this last week, but I got so caught up in my uni work I never had the chance!

Baking is one of my all time favourite things to do, and I had a free night last weekend and decided to make some cookies and cream cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home cookbook:

This book seriously has the yummiest recipes

The Sponge Recipe:

70g unsalted butter, softened

170g plain flour

250g caster sugar

50g cocoa powder, sifted

1tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

210ml whole milk

2 large eggs

12-16 cookies (I used maryland cookies)

If you wanted your cupcakes to be even better, you could bake your own cookies and then put those into your cupcakes. Cookies are the one thing that I consistently fail at baking, one day I will get the hang of them, but until then, i'll be using maryland cookies or oreos haha

First pre-heat your oven to 170'C and prepare your muffin cases. The recipe makes 12-16 cupcakes, I used the recipe to make 12 and they were the perfect size. I had just found these little flower cases and I thought they were adorable so I had to use them:

I always start my cake mixes by creaming together the sugar and the butter

Then add the flour, cocoa sugar, baking powder until you get crumbs (teeny tiny crumbs in my case)

Mix the eggs and milk together in a separate bowl and add gradually, making sure you scrape the edges of the bowl as you go to mix it all together, you get what looks like the fluffiest yummiest mousse ever:

Then you need to spoon your mixture into the bun cases (I find using an ice-cream scoop makes the whole process a lot easier!) and get out your cookies and break them into four pieces each

Then put the four quarters of each cookie into a cupcake!

How good do they look?!

Bake until the top is springy (I think it recommends 30 minutes?) I ended up baking them for around 45-50 minutes and they turned out so well!

Then I just topped them with a simple buttercream made from icing sugar, butter and little whole milk and iced away!

I think really I just wanted to use the new piping set I found in the kitchen...

Then I just crumbled up some of the cookies I had left, and it was as simple as that!

Have you ever used a recipe book from the Hummingbird Bakery?

You can find the one I used here (not sponsored I just really love this book)

What's your favourite thing to bake? Would you ever make these?

Love, Amylou x

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Asparagus, Pancetta and Cream Cheese Pastries

Hey!

Yesterday my sister baked some delicious pastries and I put up a photo of her asparagus puffs on twitter, and someone asked for the recipe so I thought i'd put it up on here! 

The recipes can be found here on the GoodFood website:

Gordon Ramsay's Rough-puff Pastry

Creamy Asparagus Puffs

But if you want them both in one place i'll type them out below too :)

Pastry Ingredients:

250g Strong Plain Flour (8oz or 1 cup)

1 tsp Fine Sea Salt (½oz or 5ml)

250g Butter, at room temperature but not soft (8oz or 1 cup)

150ml Cold Water (5fl oz or 2/3 cup)

Filling Ingredients:

Plain Flour for Dusting

150g Cream Cheese

400g Asparagus Spears, trimmed

1 Medium Egg

4 Thin Slices Pancetta

Method:

Prepare the pastry first!

1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and add the butter in small rough chunks. Rub these together but make sure you can still see bits of butter.

2. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add about two thirds of the water. Mix together until you have a firm rough dough, you may need more water. Cover with clingfilm and leave to rest for 20 minutes in the fridge.

3. Sprinkle flour on a board and knead your dough on it gently into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough in one direction only until roughly 20x50cm, edges should be even. Make sure you don't work in all of the butter, you should have a marble effect.

4. Fold the top third over the centre then the bottom third up over that. Turn the dough 90 degrees to the left or right and roll out again to three times the length. Fold over as before and cover with clingfilm to chill for least 20 minutes further in the fridge.

Now you can prepare your fillings and bake your pastries!

5. Heat oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6/392F and line a baking tray with parchment. On a floured surface, roll the dough into a square measuring 30x30cm, and cut into four squares.

6. Spread a quarter of the cream cheese onto each square, leaving 1cm clean around the edge. Wrap a piece of pancetta around 4-5 asparagus spears and lay on top of the cream cheese. Brush the edges of the pastry with a little beaten egg.

7. Loosely wrap two edges over the asparagus to meet in the middle, keeping the top and bottom of the asparagus showing. Brush the pastries with beaten egg and place on baking tray.

8. Bake for 20-25mins until the pastry is cooked, golden and puffed, and the asparagus is tender.

9. Serve hot and fresh out of the oven :)

And that's it! Sorry I don't have more photos for you! I didn't know I was going to be writing this post until after they had been eaten! Hence the presentation haha. 

If you want any help with the recipes i've put the links to the originals at the beginning of this post, both from the BBC GoodFood website.

The recipe says to use smoked ham rather than pancetta, but I think it's up to you what you use! :)

Hope you enjoy making these!

Do you like reading recipes like this? There would be more photos in future, as i'd be more prepared :) My sister has thinking about writing a food blog too (she makes some amazing things), so if you like these sorts of posts i'd love to hear and i'll let her know! :)

Let me know in the comments!

Love Amylou x

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Blogmas Day Six: Christmas Food!

Hey guys!

It's almost a week into December now, so we are well and truly in the Christmas spirit and that means food, so much food!

I don't know why, but we all (at least that I know) eat so much more at Christmas! I love it! Until I have to run it all off, but we'll leave that until January for now! haha :)

My favourite thing about Christmas food, is the turkey

source

I mean how amazing does that look?! But you can't eat turkey everyday (well you could if you really wanted to) so I thought i'd share some ideas for a few other christmas snacks and desserts to make in December!

If you're having an Italian night, why not make Christmas Tree tear-and-share bread?

credit and recipe

How about some adorable strawberry and brownie trees?

credit and recipe

Or just some simple and yummy chocolate cupcakes?

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Or some yummy grinch-inspired fruit snacks?

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I'd probably even go as far as to get an edible ink pen and draw faces on the grapes, but then I am a child at heart!

There are so many different things you can make and give a christmas theme. I always associate this time of year with chocolate and roast dinners (not together!) and profiteroles. I know profiteroles aren't a christmas food, but we always have them around christmas so I always think of christmas when we have them! I mean who doesn't want a christmas croquembouche like this:

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Just add a chocolate fondue and a selection of toppings and you have the perfect end to any meal! I love making profiteroles with my sister, think we need to make one of these this year!

But how about Christmas food for the big day feast?

All links here

This all looks so good. Prosciutto wrapped asparagus, roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings, and garlic roasted carrots with parsnips and potatoes. My mouth is watering just thinking about eating these. As a family we have a roast dinner almost every Sunday, but there's just something special about a Christmas Dinner. I think it's because you just have so much more variety in it, and you have all your family round (and you pre-order all the food from Marks and Spencers so you know it's gonna be good).

At work we just bombard each other with chocolates and each office usually has a box of chocolates of some sort, celebrations or heroes in my office if we're lucky! It's such a festive time of year, and we all come together to celebrate with food. My eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach at this time of year, and I love every second of it.

What do you love to eat most at Christmas?

Love Amylou x

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Pumpkin Inspiration

Hey guys!

Halloween is one of my all time favourite days of the year. Every year I dress up and every year I carve a pumpkin. The girls have convinced me to put away the excessive face paints and special FX make up for a year, and we are all going as black cats :D Even though i've got my costume sorted, I still need to decide on how to carve my pumpkin this year, I found a few photos and thought i'd show you my favourites!

I'll leave links underneath the photos to their original sources if you want to take a better look! :)

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By no means am I saying that I could actually do any of these, but they are so beautifully done! I might get some stencils this year and try to branch out a little more than just a jack o' lantern face! Though there is nothing wrong with tradition!

I think it would be good to mix it up a bit too, how about a halloween pineapple?!

(link)

I think these are great, and I can't wait to go out and buy mine! Plus I really like homemade pumpkin and butternut squash soup too which comes in handy when trying to get rid of the insides!

If you're not a fan of pumpkins, I love this idea of using little oranges and filling them with mini smarties!

(link)

Are you excited for pumpkin carving this year? :)

Love, Amylou x


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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hey guys!

So I was looking for a cookie recipe earlier and was inspired when I saw the photos on this blog post (link) so I just had to give them a go!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies is one thing that i've never quite mastered when it comes to baking, but these turned out so good, i'll definitely be keeping the recipe!

I've kept it pretty much the same as the linked recipe I just changed the chocolate!

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter

100g light brown soft sugar

125g caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

225g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

75g Galaxy chocolate chopped into chunks

1 Galaxy Ripple crumbled

Method:

(Preheat the oven to 180°C, Gas mark 4)
1. Mix the sugars and cream together with the butter
2. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix again
3. Gradually add the flour and salt until the mixture becomes doughy
4. Add the chocolate chunks and crumble the ripple into the dough and mix/knead together
5. Cut the ball of dough into roughly 20 pieces
6. Roll these 20 pieces into balls and place on a baking tray (I used 2 trays)
7. Bake for 7-13 minutes
8. Allow to cool and stiffen

(the recipe I used suggested 7 minutes but mine ended up taking 13 as I had to swap the trays over so they baked evenly)

I took the dough out of my mixer to knead in the crumbled ripple and chocolate chunks as it was easier than trying to use the whisk/dough hook on my kitchen aid!)

They were so gooey when they came out that they melted over the side of my cooling racks (at this point I had to just eat one to make sure they were as good as they looked - they were better)

So so delicious. 

A huge thank you to the SweetAsPi Blog for putting up this recipe in the first place, I definitely recommend that you try it!

I'm going to make some of these for halloween with some green food colouring, peppermint essence and then scratch the chocolate chips to look like spiders whilst they are cooling. I'm already excited to make some!

Do you have a favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Love Amylou x


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Eating in Lancaster/Kirkby Lonsdale

Hey guys!

So i've been spending quite a bit of time in Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale recently and so thought i'd share with you a few of my favourite places that i'd recommend you go for a meal or two! :) I don't have any photographs of the actual food but i've linked each place so you can have a look on the website! :)

The first place that i'd really recommend a stop at is The Plough in Galgate.

(Photo from The Plough Website)

You'll find it as you leave the M6 at the Lancaster south junction (the university junction) and you'll reach it before you get to the University. In the 3 years that I was an undergraduate at Lancaster I only ever visited this place once for a christmas meal with my girlfriends and I honestly don't know why I didn't go more often! As a postgraduate i've been a lot for lunch dates, catch ups and family meals. 

It has a great atmosphere, the beer garden is beautiful in the summer and the food is amazing. They also serve their sandwiches on slate plates. (I have a thing for slate plates, everything would be served from slate if it was up to me). They let you book in advance (i'd recommend it!) and they also give purple card discounts to Lancaster students, so if you're a student, visiting a student or even just visiting lancaster you really need to go here!

The second place has the same name and is just as amazing if not more: The Plough at Cow Brow, Lupton.

(Photo from Google)

I only went to this place for the first time about two or three weeks ago, but I will definitely be going back. I have friends that live just around the corner that i've known for about 4 years and I hadn't seen them in a while so they invited me out for a family meal there and I don't think i've ever eaten pork belly that was as good as this one! We went on a thursday as it is Steak night so the steaks are on offer, and they looked amazing, everyone else had one and if my meal hadn't been so delicious I would have been seriously jealous!

This place is a real country pub. It has an elegance about it, without being stuffy. The decor is traditional with old wooden tables and gorgeous cosy fires, but in my white playsuit and mint dinner jacket I didn't look out of place, and that's the beauty of a place like this. The atmosphere is lovely and even though the place was full we could still sit and have long conversations and hear each others jokes! I could not recommend this place enough.

Stepping away from the Ploughs, and now onto my favourite indian in the county: Spice Essence in Kirkby Lonsdale

This Indian restaurant in Kirkby Lonsdale has been a favourite of mine ever since I lived in Cow Brow about 3 years ago, and i've driven up to it from the many places i've lived since. The food is fantastic (i'm extremely fussy about my curry but this place always gets it right!) they are always fast, especially for take out you're only waiting 15 minutes from hanging up the phone before it's in your hand! And best of all, it's always service with a smile, which many people forget is so important! So if you're ever in the area wanting an indian, I would definitely say this is the one to visit! I actually went there this week after talking to one of my friends from the area and saying how much I fancied one, so my recommendation couldn't be more recent!

I think my last recommendation has to the The Royal Hotel in Kirkby Lonsdale

(Photo from The Royal Hotel website)

I'm sure i've mentioned this place before in my blogs, but seriously, amazing. Their dinner menu is fantastic, the service is amazing and the food tastes incredible. (Can you tell I love to eat in Kirkby?) I've also been a couple of times just for a drink in the afternoon, and once even for warm cookies at lunch time (also amazing). If there is only one place you eat at in Kirkby Lonsdale, this has to be it. It's perfect for so many occasions, i've been for afternoon coffee, dates, family meals, celebrations, romantic dinners, seriously it's just perfect for all occasions, and i'm making sure it's on the list for the next time i'm up there, and you should make sure it's on yours too!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend out in the sunshine! It's been beautiful blue skies here in Yorkshire and it would be a shame not to have made the most of it! :) Have you visited Lancaster/Kirkby Lonsdale before? What was your favourite place to eat? :)

Love Amylou xxx



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Mexico #4: La Trattoria

(I tried to post this a few days ago but it wouldn't upload on the hotel wifi for some reason! I'm not in Mexico anymore but i'm going to upload the rest of my posts as soon as I can!)

Hey guys,

So today we decided to stay out of the sun for a little bit (my tolerance for heat is actually appalling)  so i'm back in the hotel lobby and thought i'd tell you a bit about the restaurant I went to last night.

La Trattoria is located in the Golf Club at the Moon Palace resort and is the most formal of all the restaurants. It requires long trousers, collared shirts and closed toe shoes, though I would have expected that be the case for dinner in most places! But as everyone else would be dressed nice, I didn't think twice about pulling out my ted baker birthday dress!

It was quite quiet down at the golf club so we just had one drink (Sauvignon blanc because i'm just that grown up now :P) and headed to our table. I went back to drinking coke (I can only take so much sophistication afterall) and we started to look at the menu.

Before we could order, the best thing happened, they brought round dessert trolleys, only it wasn't dessert, it was cheese. Usually a cheese course comes at the end of the meal, but here they started with it, and it was really good! I have no photos of the cheese trolley though, sorry! Just take my word for it, it was goooood.

We ordered our food, and I couldn't wait for it to come, I was starving and it all sounded so good! I'll put a few photos of a couple of things we had below! :)

 Cream of Spinach and Tomato Soup

Lime Sorbet in between courses

 Tequila Sunrise (when in mexico...)

Tiramisu

 Black and White Chocolate Cake

Petit Fours

Overall it was pretty good, though this is the second place I've been to here that gives you a piece of meat (Chicken or steak) but it doesn't come with any sides, no potatoes, pasta or even veg, just the meat, I don't understand! I just must be greedy, but I at least like some vegetables with my meat! I didn't include any photos of the mains, because they didn't look too appealing in the photos!

What about you guys? Would you be surprised if you got a meal that was just meat with no sides? Or am I just being weird here? haha :)

Love Amylou x



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