This week, two of my colleagues wanted to celebrate their birthdays at work and as a treat they asked me to make the cupcakes if I wanted to.
Do I ever not want to make cupcakes?
At the Wilton decorating course I took, we practiced several decorating methods with buttercream frosting. Unfortunately the last lesson of the course, were we would make a rose out of buttercream, was at the same time as my trip to London so I had to miss that one.
Since I was still curious about the outcome, I studied the example for a minute and put it to the test.
I still had some very cute cupcake wrappers looking like a white picket fence, so some other cupcakes became a field of green grass with little dropflowers.
Day two in London was shopping day!
You can shop around all day in Oxford and Regent street so that's exactly what we did. First stop was Primark which was a good idea because already a few minutes after we arrived, the store started to fill up with customers, a little to packed for us.
So after finding some fun, cheap things we moved on to Topshop, Forever 21, New Look, French Connection, Jane Norman, Aldo, Next, Zara, River Island, Uniqlo and many, many more.
These are just a few cute things we bought.
In between we went to Leicester Square to see if we could get tickets for a musical for the same night, there were still several musicals available but the choice wasn't too hard: Legally Blonde!
After getting our tickets we realised it was also time to begin looking for a place to lunch, we ended up at The Long Acre where I had a beef burger and my sister a BLT sandwich.
After lunch we got back to Oxford street to shop where later we took a short break at Joe & The Juice
We continued shopping until we had to carry on towards the Savoy Theatre for Legally Blonde.
The musical was a great spin-off of the orginal first movie, just as fun a version but with more music and dance but still with our little friends Bruiser and Rufus (Paulette's dog).
Unfortunately I couldn't find any good quality videos of the musical with the cast we had, but still OMIGOD you guys!
The next day we had lunch planned at Jamie's Italian at Convent Garden, so after a goodbye visit to Hummingbird Bakery we took the underground there.
This time I chose a black bottom cupcake and coffee to go and since it was still a quiet morning, we could still make some pictures of the bakery and talk to the staff. I miss you already Hummingbird!
Naturally we did some more shopping around Covent Garden since it wasn't by far time for lunch yet, but then we ran into a dear friend.
If you suddenly see this kind of friend you can't just pass by and ignore, so we had some tea and macarons (praline and caramel).
After a while we headed to the location of the restaurant and luckily, there's no way to miss it.
We had a table in the corner of the restaurant, at the window, so there's always something to see and the style of the restaurant was exactly right for Jamie Oliver.
We started with some anipasta followed by panzerotti and risotto, sooo good!
Basically these meals would be more than enough for lunch but there is just no way you can leave Jamie's Italian or even London itself without having a taste of one of the deserts.
Good thing we chose to share a tiramisu because never in my life have I seen such a enormous piece, but it was certainly delicious. Almost like Pim's (small cookies with chocolate and orange) because of the orange zest on top!
After our amazing lunch we had to be on our way to catch a train back to the Airport to be in time. Time went by way to fast so I was sad to leave but since I love London even more now, I'll be back soon.
Me and one of my sisters took a trip to lovely London this past week.
We arrived in the city center on Monday morning after quite a quick flight and train ride. We both have been to London before so except for a few classics we decided to skip the sight seeing and move on to our main goal: shopping.
With the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge on our route we went to Butlers Wharf where we had, loyal to the classics, fish & chips for lunch at Browns.
After lunch it was a good time to check in to our hotel, drop off the luggage and actually start shopping. Because there wasn't enough time left that day to start on shopping heaven, Oxford street, we went to another classic: Harrods.
On our way out we discovered that the South Kensington location of my favorite bakery, Humming Bakery, was actually very close to the location of our hotel. Naturally I had to make a little detour and visit.
We had a strawberry milkshake cupcake and drinks outside the bakery before moving on and it really did taste like strawberry milkshake, so good. The bakery itself looked absolutely adorable too so if I would fail at finding another job, I'm going to fly over there and happily work in this stylish pink bakery.
Harrods itself is a place you can walk around for hours before you've seen everything; high end designer bags, make-up and perfume, fashion, food, gifts, toys and even an animal kingdom on the top floor with chiuaua's but there's more to see on Brompton Road.
So after finishing Harrods we also went to the biggest Topshop of London, Harvey Nichols and French Connection before going to dinner.
We did make quite a few miles walking around all day so we went looking for a nice restaurant near our hotel and found Wild Wood. Because the fish & chips where actually a pretty big meal for lunch, we each chose a salad.
Since I recently bought a new camera, one with a specific option for food pictures, I had planned to make pictures of everything we would eat during our time in London, unfortunately I forgot to make one of our desert at Wild Wood: a white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry coulis. Delicious!
By the time we left the restaurant we were both exhausted, we got up at 6 to catch our plane and walked around all day, so we called it a day and went back to our hotel to make plans for the next day and get some rest.
Anyone out there just as obsessed with baking as I am? Holla!
It's not just baking itself that I love but also all these great TV shows about cakes, cupcakes, cooking and last but not least... contests.
Last night I discovered The Great British Bake Off on BBC Two and it's really something.
Twelve contestants start the biggest baking adventure of their lives. They will be tested on every baking skill because they simply need to make everything; cookies, cakes, desert, bread and everything by following the recipes of famous bakers. Recipes we can keep for ourselves too ;)
Last week when I went shopping, me and my mom decided to explore a different part of town for a change.
The street we ended up in had all these cute stores that you don't usually find in the bussiest parts of the shopping area and they were amazing!
I found a really cute cabinet in a store that sold all kinds of things with Mexican style. I think the cabinet itself isn't really Mexican looking so you can dress it any style you like.
I like its pretty carvings and how the wood isn't polished or varnished in any way, it just looks pure and simple.
Inspired by the many home interior magazines I read, I filled it with pretty things and memories.
About two weeks ago I turned 22, that could only mean one thing: party!
Since I'm still in love with cupcakes and baking I figuered I should include that somehow. I had put it aside for a while when suddenly Katy Perry came to the rescue, her California Girls give me the best possible party idea.
Cupcakes, cookies, candy and popsicles what other things can actually make a sweet 22 sweet?
I decided to go for the complete sugar buzz and went crazy in the kitchen.
First thing, cupcakes obviously. I made vanilla with raspberry buttercream frosting but also chocolate with triple chocolate chuncks and cream cheese frosting.
Because I like how original you can be with the classic idea of the gingerbread man, I used a Dutch old school recipe for cookies and created cute shapes with several cookies cutters. Using egg white frosting I made faces, clothes and patterns on my boys/girls, ice cream cones, wrapped candy, flowers and hearts.
Since I always make to much food I also made Blondies, a very tasteful white chocolate version to the original, dark chocolate, brownie. I added darker chocolate chuncks instead of walnuts or almonds to put my own spin on it.
The last home made treats where popsicles made out of fresh watermelon, unfortunately the weather wasn't perfect for something cold but they still tasted great.
As a finishing touch I bought all kinds of candy we used to eat when we were little and dressed the table with a pink- and cupcake table cloth.
The cupcakes and blondies are recipes from Hummingbird Bakery that I have fine-tuned to my own taste.
The pictures were taken by my dear friend Esther, you can see her projects at her website.
Even though my birthday had to end sooner or later, I've already made cupcakes several times after this party as a birthday treat at work and as an order. They all turned out real cute and tasty.
So I've seen some great bands and planned to visit some that I haven't told y'all about!
Myself and eight friends went to Rock Werchter festival, a music festival in Belgium from June 30th until July 3rd.
It was my first time to do a complete festival including the camping for a week and everything that goes with that. I expected it to be a challenge since I must admit, I'm quite vain.
Luckely there is such a thing as a cordless straightener! Really? Yes, really. I bought one from Braun with gass patterns and it was perfect to complete my festival look with decent bangs.
We had a great time together hanging out but of course the bands were a great contribution.
Linkin Park, Queens of the Stone age, Anouk, Seasick Steve, Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Ke$ha, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, The Pretty Reckless, The Black Eyed Peas, Iron Maiden, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian were definitely on our to-see list.
Since Rock Werchter was the last time I've seen live music performance I decided it was time for a new concert schedule.
September 9th - Paramore tribute concert, Hilversum
September 18th - Breda Barst festival, Breda
September 24th - Go Back To The Zoo, Tilburg
December 9th - 100 Monkeys, Amsterdam
I can't wait to see Go Back To The Zoo again and to see 100 monkeys!
Hopefully I will be able to add some more shows to my schedule soon, ideas and recommendations are very welcome!
