Snow & Chocolate Teaspoon Biscuits

Kindness is like snow, it beautifies everything it covers. 

Let it snow! 

After a mild spell of weather, winter made her presence felt with a week of snow fall.  I must say that we don't do 'snow' very well here: from the time we know that it's coming, we start  planning to stop work and play in the snow!

The snow had barely settled & I was already trying to make snow angels!

There's something magical about snow. You go to bed with the world looking one way & wake up to find it transformed and full of possibilities. As a general rule, people are friendlier, children come out on the street to play and sometimes if you're lucky, you don't have to go to work!

Me hard at work!

This week was cool because I had my very first set of visitors in my new home (well ones that stayed over anyway!) Maarten and Liz from Belgium came to re-live our festival days at the Worldwide Festival Awards show at Koko in Camden. We had a lovely weekend but to be honest it was too cold to do any sightseeing with them. As wonderful as snow is, after a few minutes you just want to get inside and get warm already!

My Belgian Homies :)

I did manage to squeeze some baking into my chilled (get it!) weekend and made chocolate biscuits while the guys were finishing up their Sunday lunch. We nibbled on them while we listened to good music and watched classic movies. Yay for lazy weekends and good company!

The recipe for the chocolate biscuits, comes from one of my most recent books, Boutique Baking by Peggy Porschen. You can also click here for the recipe. They are really easy to make and you can make them in any shape you like...

I'll leave you with this cool snow quote;

"Advice is like the snow; the softer it falls, the longer it stays and the deeper it sinks into the mind" Samuel Coleridge

Have a great week!

Peace & Love

xx

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Happy (Belated) New Year!

I promised myself that I would never begin a post with 'sorry I haven't blogged in a while", and I have no intention of breaking that promise now, although I will say that I have missed you very much! Also a very belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! :)

The last few months of 2012 were filled with an incredible amount of upheaval and change for me. I've got a new job, a new home; there have been deaths and births, tears and laughter, and everything in between. I've been forced to take a good hard look at myself and the decisions that I have made and what they have produced in my life.

Most of all though, I have learned so much about myself and what I can do if I put my mind to it.  I also appreciate how blessed I am and how much love I have around me. I don't know what it is about hardship but somehow it seems to be the greatest teacher. How cool it would be, if I could grow and mature whilst having a great time, or if I could close my eyes, make a wish & everything that I want would magically appear? But apparently that's not quite how it works!

I also realise that the saying 'life is short', is not strictly accurate because life can be extremely long! I know that I need to be mindful of the foundations that I am laying, and that I stay purposeful, to be the person I want to be and live the life that I want to live...

Not that I have attained this as yet, but I'm on the journey. I have so many exciting plans for 2013, I've given it the tag line of 'love, money and happiness' (in no particular order). I look forward to sharing my journey with you this year & promise to be more consistent!

What are your plans for 2013?

Peace & Love

xx

Oh before I forget (wow, I'm so out of practice!), the cakies in the picture are Gingerbread Cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery Book - Cake Days, click here for a link to a recipe. They are definitely great for winter with a cup of tea and a whole new outlook on life! :)

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Sugar Cookies

One of my Instagram friends thislakshmi, asked me the other day whether I did decorated cookies as she doesn't see pictures of them on my feed. The answer to that was no, not because I don't want to, but because I'm intimidated by piping icing! 

It sounds silly but I see loads of really cool cookie treats that I want to make but then I wimp out because I don't think it will look any good.

When she asked me about it, I realised that I'd let that fear stop me from actually improving my skills because I didn't even start! 

How often do we do that, become so paralysed by a fear of failure that we don't end up doing, creating or having the things that we desire?

Armed with the revelation that fear was holding me back from making beautiful cookies, I turned to my new baking bible - Amy Atlas's Sweet Designs and made some sugar cookies (recipe above). Then I made myself some royal icing,  (homemade royal icing by the way,  is so much more delicious than shop bought or ready-made stuff) and got to piping. I was so excited that I didn't even use any piping nozzles!

It's not the neatest but it's a start and I have now conquered that (irrational) fear of royal icing! I've got loads of ideas for what I want to do next so watch this space!

We gain strength and courage and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot. Eleanor Roosevelt

What will you do today?

Peace & Love

xx

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