a little visit to whitstable | england

Is it me or are the world and his wife heading off to Whitstable at the moment? I feel like my entire Instagram or Twitter are heading off there every weekend. And so, one weekend not too long ago I joined the thousands of people on the train up from London (unfortunately not the fast train because it turns out I am not a master in planning...). I do love the proper British seaside resorts, and Whitstable had been built up in my expectations, so I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about! 

We arrived in Whitstable starving and immediately headed off to try and find somewhere to eat something. I have to say, we were pretty spoilt for choice. I had no idea that Whitstable was famous for its oysters (sorry!) and they were everywhere, along with some fancier looking lobster and some less fancy fish and chips. I'm ashamed to say we didn't stop for oysters (maybe we should have done...) but we did walk up to a pub a little further along the front where we feasted on whitebait, scampi and prawns and that kept me pretty satisfied, especially as it was whacked back with a lot of Pimms.

One of my big regrets is not exploring just a little more, because apparently there's some seriously good shopping in Whitstable (who knew?) but we just ran out of time. That may have been because we spent most of the time in the pub...The whole trip has opened my eyes a little to that part of the UK, as I'm not much of a fan of Brighton and I hadn't realised there were such lovely seaside towns which aren't that far from London that aren't Brighton. I'm definitely looking at another trip to that part of the country, maybe Ramsgate? If anyone has any ideas, let me know! 

whoopie pie mocha & hazelnut macarons | a recipe

What do you do when you decide to make macarons at 1am and then realise you can't find your piping bag or icing nozzles for love nor money? You throw them onto baking sheets and when they come out six times the size of actual macarons and a little bit weird looking, you call them whoopie pie macarons, hope you're not being completely insulting to the French and pat yourself on the back for being rlly, rlly clever. Also, it means you don't even need an excuse to eat six macarons, you just get to eat one massive one and no one can question it. And do you know what? This was the second time I've made macarons (the first time was an unmitigated disaster!) and I don't think they came out all that badly, and they've been hoovered up at work pretty quickly. I didn't fancy this week's bakealong (again!) because batter is not my thing! 

I used this recipe, which I'll be bookmarking because the instructions are some of the most simple I've seen when it comes to making macarons. However, there were a few changes I made because I found that the ganache needed a few changes, and I also added a small amount of hazelnut liquer to give it a little bit of an alcoholic nutty kick. 

INGREDIENTS: 

• 4 egg whites
• 75g caster sugar
• 225g icing sugar
• 115g ground almonds
• 1 tbsp instant coffee (for macarons)
• 1 tbsp instant coffee (for filling)
• a pinch of salt
• 150g dark chocolate
• 125ml double/whipping cream 
• 1 tbsp frangelico

STEP ONE:

Preheat oven to 150° Celsius. Separate your egg whites into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar and whisk with a mixer until stiff peaks form. 

STEP TWO:

Whizz the icing sugar, ground almonds, one tablespoon of instant coffee, and a pinch of salt in a food blender to make sure there are no lumps. I always buy my ground almonds from Marks and Spencer because I think they come pretty clump free, and are also pretty affordable. 

STEP THREE:

Mix everything from the food processor into the egg whites and sugar mixture until everything is fully combined. The mixture should be smooth. 

STEP FOUR:

Line two baking sheets with non-stick paper. Then, using a piping bag and a round nozzle, pipe circles onto the tray. Once complete, firmly rap your baking tray on a hard surface a few times (I completely forgot to do this, which is why mine are a little cracked. My only excuse is that it was 1am!). Place into the oven for approximately 20-25 minutes. They should come off the tray easily when ready. Leave them to cool on a cooling rack.

STEP FIVE:

Break your chocolate up into small pieces and leave in a small bowl. Heat your cream in a saucepan and once warm but not boiling, stir in your remaining tablespoon of instant coffee and pour over your chocolate. Stir until the mixture has thickened and all the chocolate has melted. Then add the frangelico and stir in. Once finished, spoon onto half of your macaron shells and sandwich the other halves on top. 

And there we have it! Next time - lessons include making sure I rap the bloody things and trying to find my icing nozzle to get proper circles!

my autumn clothes wishlist.

LEFT TO RIGHT:

light grey jumper | dark grey jumper | studded flats | long top | white ribbed jumper | leopard clutch | green top | leather skirt | navy ribbed jumper | pointed flats | light grey jumper | striped top | shopper

I should probably start by saying that Autumn is one of my favourite seasons and I am desperate for it to properly kick in. As someone who tends to find themselves loving the average, I hate the heat and I hate extreme cold, so Spring and Autumn are perfect for me. I'm a bit of an old granny, and love the fact that I can wear a coat and don't have to rifle through my bag to find my Oyster card and can have it stuffed inside a pocket instead. I love tights and socks and love the fact that they all hide a multitude of sins. 

This weekend I have a massive wardrobe overhaul planned. I don't have a massive bedroom, and my small wardrobe is so packed I'm having to throw things inside and slam the door shut and hope it doesn't all cascade out when I next open it. I have to get so much stuff put on eBay, and then I pretty much plan to fill it all again with easy to wear, affordable but good quality basics. This year I am determined not to fill my wardrobe with Primark jumpers that never fit me properly and always fall apart after the first wash. 

This navy jumper and this white jumper from H&M look perfect for slouchy days at work, when it's a bit chilly. I don't have a particularly smart workplace, and I could easily wear them outside of work too. Leather skirts are so easy to dress up and down, and I don't think there's a way that you can make them look bad. They seem to work with most outfits, but I think they'd look especially great with the striped top from my new favourite store, & Other Stories, or this dark grey marl woollen jumper from H&M. 

Shoes are my winter weak spot. I'm really not a fan of wearing boots, and have been known to wear flats even in the snow. These Next flats are one of my staple wardrobe items, they always look great, and I fell in love with these Dune flats whilst out shopping last weekend.

What are you after this Autumn? Also, if you have any suggestions for any other places to grab affordable basics from, that'd be great!

a little visit to bournemouth | england.

I went to Bournemouth so long ago I can barely believe I'm only blogging about it now. Admittedly, going to Bournemouth in January wasn't my smartest move, but I think we were quite lucky with the weather considering. At least we were still able to get onto the beach and we weren't rained on (too much). We planned the trip to keep the spirits up after the Christmas break - you know that feeling you get when you're like, oh god, I really do have to do another year of this. And so a weekend away was booked, anywhere, preferably near the sea. 

We stayed at the Royal Bath Hotel, which I won't recommend. The location was lovely, but it was so run down and if someone could have given me the money to do it up, I'd have been in there like a shot. It had so much potential. Instead it's tired and rickety and there's a Premier Inn practically over the road which I imagine is cheaper, nicer, and has a better view. 

I'm at a bit of a loss to say what I did in Bournemouth, as realistically, I didn't do all that much and as a result I don't recommend visiting in January, as funnily enough, beaches in England tend to be more of a summer thing. We took a walk along the pier, had afternoon tea in a hotel and spent a long time laughing at the people zip wiring along the pier, and an even longer time getting colour coordinated photos of the wonderful beach huts that are all along the sea front. How pretty are they? 

I think I'll have to spend some more time in Bournemouth soon, probably because sometimes it's just so good to get away from London and spend some time by the sea. Growing up in the Midlands seems to have instilled this ridiculous sense of it being such a novelty, even though I live closer to it than I ever have done before. Next time I'd stay in a better hotel too, and maybe try and get my hands on some fish and chips, because I feel I lacked in not doing that this time. Who goes to the sea side and doesn't get fish and chips with a 99?! Ooops. 

chocolate and fudge baked doughnuts | a recipe

I've wanted to make doughnuts for quite some time but have always been put off by the fact that they require deep frying. I don't own a deep fat fryer, and haven't had access to one since I lived in Holland and they were everywhere. I'm also not the kind of person to be trusted near a massive saucepan of oil, I think my neighbours would never forgive me if I tried and burned down the block. I didn't realise you could bake doughnuts until I stumbled across a recipe for one, and as I didn't fancy taking part in this week's bakealong because I'm not a fan of making bread, this seemed like a relatively good alternative. The next best thing about this recipe is that you can make them without a doughnut pan too - you don't need any specialist equipment at all. It's all really easy.

They can be a little unnerving when they come out of the oven because they look like bread rolls and I was really quite worried that they would taste like them too. Luckily looks are quite deceiving and they do taste like doughnuts! Getting the jam in was a little tricky too, but I managed to find a pumpkin cutter tool which was quite handy as a small knife for making a hole big enough to poke jam inside. 

I used this recipe here, but didn't use the glaze and also didn't go through the pain of making my ring doughnuts. Instead, I iced mine for two reasons. One, I thought it was a good idea to make doughnuts past midnight on a Monday morning and two, I have a tendency to make things taste like the sea when something is "salted". This was all so much easier than I thought it would be, and they haven't turned out too badly, I definitely recommend giving them a go. 

trying out all the gins at london gin festival 2016

I found myself at London's Gin Festival a few weeks ago, on a relatively chilly day in August and headed to Tobacco Dock for their afternoon session. Realistically, I wasn't the Gin Festival's target market for this event for one quite important reason - I don't like gin. In fact, I do quite a lot to actively avoid it. Plus, my favourite "spirit" is a Malibu. My biggest choice when getting a Malibu and Coke is whether I want the Pineapple version or not (the answer, by the way, is always no). But, I have a fear of missing out and so I spent my Sunday afternoon drinking (lots of) gin. 

And it was pretty good actually. When you arrive, you buy a number of tokens (we chose four each) and you get a free glass to carry around with you so when you choose a gin, you just hand them the glass to fill up for you, which I really liked because I've been to these festival events before and they always run out of glasses and make you wait for ages while they run around finding clean ones for you. You also get a little booklet to pick which gin you want, and it corresponds to a bar. There were four bars to help organise the gins. Once you've picked, they recommend a tonic, which are all free and easy to pick up from a different table. You can also get gin cocktails, but they were double the price at two tokens.

Would I usually have drunk four gin and tonic's in the space of an hour and a half? Nope. Did I actually enjoy doing so? Yep. I got myself into a bit of a fluster ordering my first gin and blurted out to the woman behind the bar that I had no idea what to get. She asked me what gin I usually get, and I said I usually didn't. Weirdly, she then asked me if I liked Malibu and recommended me a gin based on that (Hoxton Gin, apparently). It was pretty impressive that the people behind the bars could remember which tonic was supposed to go with which gin, and could also make recommendations based on those gins - there were literally hundreds there. 

I also managed to find a gin which I loved - even though it was unsurprisingly a gin liqueur more than a proper gin. I've already plastered this gin all over my social media, but I have genuinely fallen in love with it and will probably be regularly buying it. Zymurgorium make a "sweetly crafted violet gin liqueur" - basically it's a gin that tastes like parma violets. Reliving your childhood while drinking gin - perfect. 

I also found out my colleague didn't know what parma violets were. I hope she's the only one. 

If I had any complaints, it would be that the cocktails were too expensive. At £10 a throw, I never quite managed to get around to buying one. Although I live in London, and know how expensive cocktails can be, I did think this was a bit steep for an event. My friend was a little annoyed at how the only tonics available were Fever Tree, as he finds them quite overpowering. And, to be honest, we thought there maybe too many gins there? It was a little overwhelming. 

To be fair though, we really enjoyed the event, and it's nice to see that the Festival takes place all round the country, not just in London. Plus, the tickets at £12.50 were pretty good value for a four hour time slot, and for the amount of choice, plus the master classes you could have joined. I think we'll look into going back next year, to scratch a few more gins off the list.