Happy Sunday.

Heyo!

Very sorry for not having posted yesterday. I have reason!

 Yesterday morning I decided that I was going to try to have a good day rather than and 'alright' one. I decided to simply do things that I enjoyed and that would make me happy and then take photos of them. Apologies for some not being great quality. I took them with my phone.

Mint tea and home-made lemon cupcake. What a way to kick off the day (oooh that rhymed!)

Scrabble with my sister. I lost miserably.

The ideal way of tricking myself into thinking it's summer. A glass of lemonade.

Ukulele time! I'm still debating whether to call it 'Fred' or 'Lola'.

These things may not seem like much to make me have a good day but take my word for it, I went to bed feeling that I had a mostly positive and productive day. I certainly would like to try this as much as I can as I feel it will completely change the way I feel at the end of the week. I urge you all to do the same and make a decision to have a good day.

Sharleen x

How to make Cherry 'Scoscuits'

Heyo!
I've been very unwell for these past few days therefore, I haven't been able to write a brand new post. A week or two ago I guest posted on another blog so instead of posting nothing, I decided to share the post with you guys as well. 
This is a scone recipe that I found on the internet a few months ago and slightly adapted and I must say are super simple and yummylicious. I've called them cherry 'scoscuits' because although they have a kind of "sconey" texture,  they don't rise very much like scones thus are (kind of) biscuits/scones. My sister is a big Star Wars fan and asked me to make scones as it was Star Wars day hense the writing on the scones (just thought I might explain that). Righty roo let's begin. 

                  Ingredients (makes roughly 25):

- 250g Self Raising Flour

- 75g Butter

- 190ml Milk

- 75g Sugar

- 140g Glacé Cherries

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Mix the sugar and flour together in a large mixing bowl.

3. Chop the cold butter into small pieces and add in with the flour and sugar. Then combine the three ingredients together using your hands to make the mixture crumby.

4. Add in the milk bit by bit (continue to use your hands to combine the mixture).

6. Chop the glacé cherries up into halves or quarters (depending on how strong you want the taste of the cherries to be) then add them little by little into the dough (keep using your hands to evenly fold the cherries in).

7. Sprinkle flour onto a work surface (or chopping board if you want less to clean up afterwards) and roll the dough out to roughly 2 cm thick.

8. Using a cookie cutter, cut your dough into any shape and spread the shapes out over two baking trays. Then put into the oven for 15-20 minutes. They are ready to take out when quite solid on the top (don't wait for them to be rock hard however as after 20 minutes they should in theory be definitely ready).

And that is it! I'll see you next week.

Sharleen x

The Easiest Chocolate Cake

 Happy Sunday!

Yesterday I was reading an article on the easiest chocolate recipes and it lead me to one that I thought was very simple and doable.

Ingredients (Yes I'm aware there are a lot but it's really simple I promise):

- 225g Plain Flour
- 325g Caster sugar
- 85g Cocoa Powder
- 1 & a half tsp baking powder
- 1 & a half tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 Eggs
- 250ml milk
- 125ml vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 250ml boiling water

For the Chocolate Icing:

- 200g Milk Chocolate
- 200ml Double Cream


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line two sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.

2. Put all the ingredients apart from the icing ingredients and the boiling water into a large mixing bowl and mix together well with a wooden spoon.

3. Little by little add the boiling water and continue stirring the mixture together until well combined. (It is normal for the mixture to be very liquid.)

4.  Divide the mixture between the two tins and place in the oven for 25-35 minutes. Tip: Remove from the oven when a knife is stuck in the centre of each cake and it comes out clean.

5. To make the chocolate icing: Heat the double cream and the chocolate (which should be cut into small squares) into a medium saucepan. Do this until the chocolate has melted. Mix together and once completely combined, take off heat.

6. Put the icing in a new bowl and leave to cool at room temperature for around 2 hours until it is thick enough to be a spread.

7. Spread some chocolate icing over the top of one of the cakes. Then place another one on top and spread the rest of the icing on the top and around the sides.

8.. Put in the fridge for a few hours.

I made a few minor alterations to the recipe but if you'd like to see the original one (it has a video too) click on this link:

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/easy_chocolate_cake_31070

Until next week!

Sharleen x

Another Part Of Me.

Hello. 

Today's post is going to be very different. Cue cheesy intro.

Those who know me are extremely aware that I L.O.V.E singing. It is my everything.  It's what brings me back up when I'm feeling down and it's my medicine when feeling ill. I wanted to share that part of my life with you by simply putting a video of one of my covers and I shall say nothing else other than I'm aware that it's not perfect but I'm working on it. I'm not a piano player but I'm working on it. There's not a very good balance between the voice and piano but I tried my best. It has taken a lot of thought and courage to put a video out there for anyone to see but I've become more comfortable lately with the idea of putting videos of my singing on YouTube and who knows, I may well do just that one day. Sorry about the slip ups and the bad quality (closing the curtains was the only way to get my camera to focus, annoying, I know). Enjoy (hopefully haha).

'Safe and Sound' Cover

Until next week!

Sharleen x