Happy New Year! (Lady Baltimore Cake)

Happy New Year! 

Firstly, may 2012 bring you happiness and joy and all that jazz :)

Secondly, I shall sum up most important (um... well, kind of) I have learnt (through food, because after all, this was what my blog was originally about... "a journey of self discovery through cooking, chocolate and Other Important Things") in 2011:

1) The longest I can go baking tee-total is 2 months. After that I start having spasms and everything starts looking round and spongey and smells of vanilla.

2) A cake can make good bribe. "I'll bake for you if you let me copy your essay!" (then give them a Sainsbury's Basics fairy cake with a bit of homemade frosting. Muahaha.) Not that I've ever done this.

3) If you ever think 'you need to get off facebook and put your face IN A BOOK. Then made a book cake, and put your face in it. 

4) I discovered bento boxes. And I liked it.

5) You can write with 99% dark chocolate (see?). So when you become a top secret MI6 spy you can write notes with chocolate and then eat the pen. No danger of fingerprints being caught then.

From baker to banker: I have a job!

A real job starting when I graduate next summer! A real, I have to move out and iron and hoover and pay taxes and worry about my pension kind of job, in which I have to try and use my "economic" knowledge (ha!) and do clever things (uuhhhh) kind of job! This is scary stuff. 

Like, responsibility? Woah.

So I shall try and pass on my *ahem* interview wisdom...

(skip straight to the next photo for just the bento making part)

p.s. I just showed this post to my dad in which he said 'they look kinda like monkeys'.
They are penguins. PENGUINS.

Reindeer Cupcakes

Who feels Christmassy?? Actually, let me put that another way. Who's been listening to Michael Buble's Christmas album on repeat?

I have! I have! I have!

And in keeping with last year (I made chestnut cupcakes), this year I've got reindeer cupcakes.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

A santa made from plastic cheese..."

Merry December!

I thought I would start off the month with a Babybel Santa. When I was 10, I hated cheese. In fact, I would go to pizza hut, peel off the topping and eat the crust. But I did love peeling babybels. In fact, I would spend every lunchtime asking my friends (the cool ones who had packed lunches because I always had school dinners) if I could peel their babybels. I think you got a bit annoyed of me after a while (so I'm apologising! I know it's 10 years too late but I'm sorry!)

Plus, I'm going home (from Uni) on Sunday so I will be reunited with my oven very soon :) Although I have a mountain of work to do my Secret Santa got me a Christmas apron so I've got no excuse not to bake! Watch this space!

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I just also wanted to let you know that Cooking Gallery is hosting a Bento contest.It's being sponsored by CasaBento (the cool people who make those cool Bento boxes that I use), so I think you should check it out - even if it's just for oogling the adorable Bento box on Cooking Gallery's competition page!

I'll be making a Christmas themed Bento soon as well. Christmas + rice = Christmarice??

(I'll have another think and get back to you.)

Matcha Cheesecake

Did anyone used to watch Bernard's Watch?

I did! I did!!

Because, there are days, even weeks, that have passed when I have actually forgotten that my blog existed. It's not that I'm getting tired of it/ bored of it/ found some superior hobby to baking (because, frankly, the day that happens is the day I'll understand the Principles of Microeconomics), more that I don't have time.

So as I was in bed reading about the second welfare theorem after having written the third essay of the week, BAM, I had an IDEA. Actually, the idea hit me.

In the form of a magical time-stopping pocket watch. Oh yes.

I mean, wasn't it just a month ago that they discovered those proton neutrino thingies that travelled faster than the speed of light? So there. Time travel is totally possible.