Jam tart recipe

Everyone seems to be trying to create the best recipes for puddings and treats by opting for the most complicated ideas. Jam tarts are so simple and delicious, but you can also make them easily with young children and get really creative.

All you need to make the tarts is Jam and pastry (you can make it even more impressive by home-making the both of these). Roll out the pastry and using a large tea cup, press out circles of pastry (you want to save a small amount of to decorate). After doing so heavily grease a tart tin and put in the pastry, put a spoonful of whatever Jam takes your fancy in the centre. You can then choose what you would like to decorate. In-line with my favourite story 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', I normally cut out small hearts and place them on top. Put them in the oven at 180 degrees and check on them after 12 mins, they vary on how thick your pastry is. Leave to cool for a bit and enjoy warm!

Alice in Wonderland - Margaret Tarrant

I am completely in love with 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. I am fascinated and completely obsessed with anything related to the story. About a year ago, I started collecting various different editions of the book (versions with different illustrations for example). As a student I don't have a lot of money for this so I have to keep looking in charity shops, but this actually makes it more fun. There's no better feeling than uncovering an edition you didn't even know existed and a book that's had a history to it.

Today I visited Oxfam books and was lucky enough to spot in the window display a really old looking 'Alice in Wonderland' book. It only contains the first part of the story and not 'Through the looking glass' but it's still lovely. It contains 24 coloured plates illustrated by Margaret W Tarrant. Unfortunately I can't find a publishing date, I've done some research and between 1916-1928 seems fitting but I can't be exactly sure. One of the main reasons I love collecting these is because I love drawing and copying the illustration as a means of relaxation. So this book is going to be absolutely perfect for that!

Blueberry Muffins

They're pretty simple but still one of my favourite cakes:

Ingredients:
60g Butter
142g Plain Flour
50g Sugar
1tsp Baking Powder
Sprinkle of salt
120ml Milk
1 small egg
Vanilla extract
50g Blueberries, Washed(you can really put how many you want in)

This makes about 6 muffins

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and set aside. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and put the cases in the tin.

2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, egg and vanilla extract with a fork. Beat until thoroughly blended.

4. Add the butter, the milk mixture and the blueberries to the flour and mix.

5. Put even amounts in the cases set out. Then sprinkle sugar over the top of each.

6. Bake until golden and risen for 18-20 mins and then enjoy them hot or cold!

Chocolate torte

So I was asked to make two deserts for my mum's dinner party, I decided to make a chocolate torte. I haven't made a torte before but as I love cooking I thought i'd give it a go. The recipe I used can be found on:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2602542/Food-Dark-chocolate-Easter-torte.html

I made a couple of changes along the way; using Kahlua rather than rum to really coordinate with the chocolate taste. Also the glaze isn't very runny, in fact mine completely hardened (which actually tasted lovely in contrast to the soft torte), so I would suggest adding something to the chocolate if you're insistent on it being drippy. For my decoration on top, I simply shaved milk chocolate.

Tie Dye

One of my favourite things to do in the summer is tie dying. Ive being doing it for quite a while now. It started with just pyjama t-shirts but I soon moved on to dying my bed linen and other clothes. My tie dye bed linen recently became threadbare so I thought it would be a good idea to share some advice whilst I do it.

You can pretty much buy clothes dye from anywhere. I personally find Dylon is the best to use, as they have very bold and striking colours. The cheapest place to get this is probably on amazon, prices vary colour to colour. The one I'm using is Bahamas Blue, it clashes with the rest of my room but it looks like such a beautiful colour. Previously Ive used Powder Pink to dip dye shorts, Flamingo pink to do clothes and bed linen and also tropical green. These four are very bright and bold colours but if that's not your style you can always use less dye to make it a lighter shade. With this in mind, I think tie-dye works best bold.

There are lots of different patterns you can make, I'm going to share three of my favourites:

First is the flower pattern. I normally do this on my bed sheet. You have to find a lot of elastic bands for any tie dye but you need a lot for this pattern. You simply just take a golf ball underneath the sheet and then tie an elastic band around it and the sheet on the top side to form a bobble. Do this lots and lots all over the sheet to create the impression of flowers as the finished result.

Secondly is the bulls eye pattern. To achieve the impression of a dartboard target you have to find the middle of the material, pinch it, and then pull it up. Then going down, tie rubber bands in different sections, I think more looks better but that's just personal opinion. You should be left with your material is a sort of rigid column.

Thirdly is my personal favourite, the spiral. This is a bit more tricky so i'd start with practising the other two first. You have to make your material wet first so it holds its shape when working with it. Next pinch the middle and start twisting it round, the material should spiral around the bit you pinched. After doing this you might have to tuck in little bits or just help them round at the side. Once you've made this, you should have almost a little parcel of material. Its important to secure this around the edge with rubber bands, two or three should do it.

On the packet it says to do this in the washing machine, but for tie dye you do not want to do this. You will be tying things such as golf balls in your material so it'll break the machine. You want to do this in a bucket outside. You also need to buy some cheap salt to put in the bucket as well. Firstly boil the kettle fully. I normally do two loads of boiling water from the kettle and then fill the rest up with a hose. After this mix the salt in until its dissolved and then put the dye in. I use an old wooden spoon to do this, you can use whatever but it will get ruined.

You're finally ready to put your material in the bucket. Carefully place it in and then leave it in the bucket for one and a half hours. Keep coming back to agitate the dye with the wooden spoon, this is important if you have more then one thing in the dye.

Once the hour has passed you can take it out. I usually take all the rubber bands off and then hang it to dry outside for 30/40 mins. This just gets all the excess dye to drip on to the grass and dry slightly. I would also highly recommend rubber gloves at this point, the dye is highly irritant and does not was off your hands. After this you need to wash it in the washing machine with no powder, this needs to be done on a low heat wash. If you want to be really cautious you can wash it again before use with powder. Then you're ready to use it!

Waterfall Braid

To be honest, despite being pretty good at plaiting now, I can barely do them on my own hair. It took me ages to achieve an average looking fishtail on my hair. However a surprisingly simple style is the Waterfall Braid. Most people seem put off by them as a lot of the tutorials aren't very good explanations. But I've tried to devise one that's understandable on everyone's level. Its basically a plait that reaches all around the back of your head. Then you can manipulate it into another plait, ponytail or bun, it looks good even leaving it loose. Leaving it loose can look very elegant and pretty for an evening event whereas during the day time, its brilliant for pulling the wispy parts away from your face.

So in my instructions the different colours represent different chunks of hair. The plait starts just above the ear on the side of the head. You then just keep adding bits until you get to the other side. Oh and as you can probably tell by the photograph, wet hair is easiest as the sections of hair are more defined.

Pressing Flowers

As Spring has recently arrived and the weather has somewhat improved, I thought I would write an entry on pressing flowers. The process of pressing flowers basically is a way of preserving them so they last forever. Once pressed they can be used in art form such as scrap booking, card making or just as a keepsake if they were a present from someone special. I was actually really successful with these methods so I thought I would share them

So the first method I used was to completely press them. To do this, you need a really heavy book (I used a dictionary), grease proof paper and kitchen roll. Firstly, open the book near the middle and cut a piece of grease proof paper that will stretch across both pages. By doing so, no flower juice gets on the pages and ruins it! Next place a piece of kitchen roll on the right side, on top of this goes the flower and then another piece of kitchen roll. The kitchen roll will help dry the flower out. After this you can close the book. The time-span of each type of flower varies but it shouldn't take any more than a week. With my first attempt I left it slightly too long and unfortunately my flowers went mouldy, the time frame between perfectly pressed and mouldy is very slim, so my advice is to keep checking. I also placed a crate of drinks on top of the book just to really squish it. Once the pressing process is complete I left my flower in a sunny window. You want all the moisture to be gone from the flower so it doesn't go mouldy, this proved to be sufficient.


The next method doesn't give you the conventional pressed flower. It uses the same process of drying but you are left with the flower shape. To do this, you'll need a piece of ribbon or string and an airing cupboard. All you need to do is pull the leaves and the already dead petals off the plant. Then turn them upside down and tie a very secure, tight knot around the stems. After this tie the other end of the string onto a pipe or similar structure in the airing cupboard. Try not to tie it too near the front otherwise they keep getting knocked by clothes and things which damages the plant. This doesn't take as long to dry but again it varies from plant to plant. Once satisfied you can untie the flowers and you'll be left with the same shape. They will be completely dry so there is no need to leave them in the sun.

I think I prefer the outcome of the book pressing method, but that's probably because its then easier to use in art. The airing cupboard method works best if you're trying to preserve the flower as a keepsake. You can actually buy special contraptions to press the flowers from art shops but you honestly do get the same results as using a book. I think I might try and press flowers from a variety of special places and then make it into a journal.