"have a cuppa tea" skirt

Woohoo, my first sewn item of 2015! A flirty Anna Maria Horner Study Hall skirt. I'm surprised that there doesn't appear to be many versions online as I think it's a fantastic little pattern.

Do you ever have days when your face just will not co-operate? I was suffering from a bad case of chronic bitch face whilst photographing this skirt. No matter how pleasant an expression I thought I was pulling, I looked pissed off in every single photograph.

I was going for casually gazing out the window.... instead I look like I'm quietly plotting someone's death.

And I look utterly disgusted in this one. "What the hell is this? You call this a cup of tea?!"

Perhaps I'm angry because my skirt is slightly squint in these photograps. *face palm* I'm clearly incapable of dressing myself properly. The number of times I've discovered that my skirts have swivelled half way round my body is ridiculous.

But wooh for my fairly well matched centre back seam! And you can finally see the lovely colour of my tights in these photographs.

Now down to the details. I cut out a size SM and....

• lengthened the skirt panels by 1 inch as I'm tall-ish

• removed the hem border as it seemed unnecessary when I wasn't using a contrasting fabric.

• finished the hem with bias binding so I could keep as much skirt length as possible.

• reduced the side seams to 1/2inch as I prefer my skirts to sit at the top of my hip bone rather than my waist. In retrospect I probably could have left them at 5/8 inch but meh, it's comfy.

• added a skirt lining to prevent sticking-to-tights syndrome. As the skirt doesn't have a waistband I attached the lining, tucking it in a few places, to the skirt facings (which I also interfaced) and then "stitched in the ditch" at the top of the side seams to hold down in place. I doubt that's a professional method but it worked for me.

• swapped the invisible zip for a regular one. Partly because I couldn't a find an invisible zip the correct colour or length, mostly because I prefer regular zips.

• finished the side seams of my lining with french seams. It made me feel fancy. 

Tidy insides make me feel happy. I also love the contrast of bright pink lining. It's a fun surprise.

Would you believe I was originally 3-4 inches short of having enough pink bias binding to finish the hem? I had enough green but in my mind it *needed* to be pink so I had to wait a couple of days until I was next in town to buy the correct amount. Frustrating, but worth the wait.

After my (still ongoing) struggles of fitting dress bodices it felt amazing to have a skirt fit with minimum fuss - no tilting seams, weird wrinkles or pulling areas. Only having my hip curve to contend with makes things so much easier. Hurray for having a relatively pancake flat ass!

Bonus points to those of you who immediately started singing The Kinks after reading my title. Such a great track. :D

chocolate malt marble bundt

It was my Mum's birthday at the weekend so naturally she deserved a beauty of a cake. I have to admit I think I did pretty well this year.

After seeing a malted chocolate bundt cake on Chocolate Log Blog a few weeks ago I immediately bookmarked it with Mum's birthday in mind. She loves chocolate, Horlicks, maltesers and bundts so it was a match made in heaven.

The only substitutions I made were plain flour instead of half plain/half wholemeal spelt flour and golden syrup instead of mesquite powder. I also veered off track with the icing glaze. I had milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate so I was unsure about using Choclette's method of melted sugar in case it ended up being overly sweet. Instead I followed a similar icing in my Mary Berry book which adds icing sugar at the end, thinking it would be easier to adjust the sweetness. However when I tasted the icing it just tasted really water-y, not particularly appetising. 

At this point I went freestyle and chucked in extra chocolate, butter and icing sugar and sifted in some cocoa powder which boosted the chocolate flavour and deepened the colour. This resulted in a slightly fudgier runny icing, definitely preferable to what I started out with. It looked lovely and glossy poured over the cake too.

I slightly over cooked my bundt at the crust/the top when it's in the oven (9 months later and I still forget this oven cooks things quicker) but the ground almonds and yoghurt in the batter kept the cake moist. As you can see there were satisfying puddles of icing around the edge of cake stand which were perfect for adding to any dry bits. Or just scooping up to eat from a teaspoon!

It's always exciting cutting into a marble cake to reveal what pattern lurk inside. It's such a simple yet striking effect. Chocolate and malt is a winning flavour combination too. The malt flavour definitely comes through in the pale mixture which elevates it beyond your standard chocolate and vanilla marble sponge. I highly recommend this cake if you want something easy and tasty to bake yet stunning to look at. Cheers for the recipe Choclette!

On a side note, are people finding my main text difficult to read at the moment? I've always used Courier as my blog font and have never had any issues with it, but it started looking patchy and faint last week on my laptop. It doesn't look any different on my work desktop computer though. Weird.

chocolate chip banana bread and homemade Nutella

A few nights ago I dreamt that Mary Berry asked me to find a Scrabble board. I didn't question her, after all she is a baking legend and has as much authority as the Queen. I dutifully drove to my house, found the box and drove back to give it to her. She was delighted and gave me a massive hug.

I have no idea what any of that signifies, but I took it as a sign to bake something from Mary Berry's Baking Bible. Looking at the sad bananas on the kitchen counter I knew it had to be banana bread, which is basically a big, comforting hug for your tummy.

This is my favourite type of recipe: throw everything in a bowl, mix for 2 minutes, pour it into a tin, done. My only addition was a bag of milk chocolate chips as I'm a sucker for banana and chocolate combinations. There's no other flavourings in the batter to interfere, just banana and milk chocolate joy.

Ok, now I'm going to address what you actually came here for..... I made my own chocolate and hazelnut spread. From scratch! Boom. Like A Boss. Totes Amazeballs. *Insert other hip lingo I feel too uncool/ashamed to use*

Admittedly it's grittier than Nutella, probably because my tiny blender isn't good enough to blitz the hazelnuts any finer. I would say it's closer in texture to peanut butter spread.

This is when I have to admit that I actually hate peanut butter with a passion. Sorry. I think it's a combination of the gritty, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth texture with the salty, oil-iness. Bleugh. However I like the flavour of this spread, it's hazelnut and chocolate after all, so I'm willing to overlook the peanut butter-type texture. The grittiness is less of an issue when the spread is warmed up (it sets once it's cool) which is how I enjoyed it with my banana bread.

If you love peanut butter I doubt any of this will be an issue though.

Other than the boring task of rubbing off the roasted hazelnut skins it's an easy spread to make so go ahead and make some for yourself! Slather it on some toast, warm banana bread or just shove it straight in your mouth. All good options.

Chocolate chip banana bread
Recipe (barely) adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible. Previously baked here.

100g (4oz) softened butter/margarine
175g (6oz) golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
3 small bananas, mashed
225g (8oz) self raising flour
1 level tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
100g milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4 and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment. Put all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in a large bowls and mix together for about 2 minutes until smooth and well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips before pouring the mixture into the prepared loaf tin. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for roughly 1 hour until well risen, firm to touch and skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the homemade Nutella I followed this recipe from Not Quite Nigella using Green and Black's milk chocolate. I also halved the quantities to suit what I had. My only suggestion would be to take care when adding the salt. I didn't think I added much but I could definitely taste it, possibly too much!