The Starbucks experience!

Good evening my loves! So for those of you who are residences in Pretoria you’ve probably already been swept up by the Starbucks hurricane? That’s right, Pretoria now has its very own Starbucks – Yippee!

This world renowned coffee shop opened up in the new shopping centre ‘Menlyn Maine’ in the East of Pretoria on the Wednesday the 21^st of September. We made sure we made it through the crowds on opening day and I really cannot say we were disappointed by our first encounter. When we arrived we were greeted by a very intimidating line but what else could we have expected?! Being first timers we had no idea what their menu entailed BUT we were greeted by a lovely young woman who discussed various options with us, they even cater for tea loves like me #Impressed.

Happy campers

My sister being the total coffee lover that she is felt right at home with a menu filled with everything from a strong Americano to the usual cappuccino – yum. Once we had finally made a decision we were then attended to by a gentleman who took our orders and wrote our names on the ever so popular Starbucks cups... Needless to say we were really excited...

It felt like we were in the coffee shop scene from ‘Miss Congeniality’- that’s how packed the place was at the time. After waiting 30minutes from start to finish we finally had our coffee’s in hand, yay! Both my mom and sister indulged Mocha and Caramel Frappuccino’s and I very much enjoyed my Chai Tea, cinnamon lovers, I highly recommend it! Also, can we please just take a moment to drool over the delicious looking baked goods... Good grief, I think I'll treat myself to a chocolate chip cookie next time ;)

YUM!

All in all our first experience at Starbucks was a great one and I definitely think we will be going back sooner than I’d like to admit...

I’d love to hear all about your experiences at Starbucks and what you’d recommend for our next visit

S

Xoxo

Rainbow Cake!

So spring is upon us and I don’t see why we need an excuse to eat cake especially one that looks like this! Here’s how:

Ingredients

Basic sponge cake:

(This makes 2 cake layers- you’ll need to multiply the ingredients by 4 for 8 layers.)

4 Eggs

1 ¼ cups (310g) Sugar

1 ½ cups (225g) cake flour

1 Tbsp (15ml) baking powder

Generous pinch of salt

2/5 cup (100g) butter

1 cup (250ml) milk

1 tsp (5ml) vanilla essence

Food colouring (colours of the rainbow)

Butter Icing:

2 cups (500g) butter

2 tsp (10ml) vanilla essence

1 packet (1kg) icing sugar

3 Tbsp (45ml) edible gold dust

1 packet (about 200g) small, round sweets or chocolates (tumbles)

Method

1.       Preheat oven to 180C. Line and grease 2 x 20cm cake tins.

2.       Beat eggs and sugar together until fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together and gently fold into egg mixture.

3.       Heat butter, milk and vanilla until butter is melted – do not boil. Fold milk mixture through the batter.

4.       Divide the batter in half. Select 2 food colouring's and add a little to each half. Spoon batter into prepared tins and bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

5.       Remove from tins and cool on a wire rack

6.       Repeat 3 more times, using the remaining food colouring's, to create 8 sponge cakes in different hues.

Icing

1.       Whip butter and vanilla together until creamy.

2.       Add icing sugar a little at a time. If the icing is too thick, add 1-2 Tbsp (15-30ml) boiling water

To assemble

1.       Trim domed tops off cakes and ice layers

2.       Place them one on top of the other, in order of a rainbow.

3.       Spread a layer of icing on all sides of cake and sprinkle with gold dust.

4.       Spread a layer of icing on sweets and coat in gold dust.

5.       Top cake with golden sweets and serve.

Recipe taken from: ‘Pick n’ pay, Fresh living magazine’ May 2016 Issue

As you can see it’s a bit of a job but the end result is well worth it I think, enjoy the process and share it with all your loved one’s... or don’t ;)

S

Xoxo

Wet 'n Wild, Colour Icon Eyeshadow - First Impression

Lately my little eyes have been attracted to very many shiny objects... Not that it’s anything new in my life BUT it is a relatively new thing when it comes to my makeup. So when I  waltzed into my local drug store (Clicks – to be precise) and I found myself standing at the Wet ‘n Wild stand I found a set of very affordable single glitter  ‘eyeshadows’ so to speak. Here’s my first impression on the Wet ‘n Wild, colour icon glitter eyesahdows.

Spiked

Well for starters, there are a total of seven single eyeshadow pots. Namely: Brass (Gold); Spiked (Silver); Binge (Purple); Bleached (Multi hued); Groupie (Pink); Distortion (Blue); Vices (Red). I purchased four of the seven, ‘Brass’, ‘Spiked’, ‘Binge’, ‘Bleached’. To me they seemed like the most versatile of the lot and they are shades that I would be able to use for my clients and let’s be honest at a price range of between R30-R40 a pop it was hard to say no SO they all came home with me.

Binge

The first time I tried the product out I used it on my sister for a night out; I used a substantial amount with high hopes that this product wasn’t going to be a flop. Unfortunately by the end of the night her eye makeup had creased quite badly and my heart sank a little. These products are infused with aloe and coconut oil so, they have a very creamy texture almost like Vaseline so it’s no wonder the product doesn’t really ‘set’ on your eyes. The pigment of some the glitter is not that great as you will see in the swatch photograph that I took...

Bleached

However, I thought I’d give these another shot because I really didn’t want to dismiss them after only having used them once. I made a point to use ‘Bleached’ & ‘Brass’ on two clients, using a much smaller amount and steering clear from the crease of their eyes. It really didn’t turn out badly, I did use setting spray after applying the glitter and that seemed to make it hold a little more which was nice.

Brass

All in all, these products aren’t my absolute favorite and I’m not so sure that I would purchase them again but, I won’t be discarding the four that I bought. I will continue to use them in the hopes that they will better with time. Have you purchased these before? I’d love to know your opinions on these products

S

Xoxo

Paella

I love a good hearty meal which I can share with my family & friends and I think that Paella is definitely one of the top five on my list of good meals to share so I figured I’d post a good recipe so you can share it with your loved ones too.

Ingredients

½ Cup (125ml) Olive oil

1 Packet (about 300g) Chicken thighs, halved at the joint

1 Onion, chopped

1 Red pepper, sliced

3 Garlic cloves, chopped

1 Tbsp (15ml) Tomatoe paste

2 Cans (410g each)  Whole peeled tomatoes

5 Cups (1.25L) Good quality vegetable stock

2 Cups (500ml) Arborio rice

½ Tbsp (8ml) Smoked paprika

Salt & pepper

300g Mussles, cleaned & debearded and/or 12 whole king prawns, devained

½ Cup (125ml) frozen peas

Lemon wedges to serve

Nice to have:

1/3 link (150g) Chorizo, thinly sliced

Large pinch of Saffron threads

Method

1.    Heat a paella or large pan over a low heat. Add 2 Tbsp oil and brown the chicken, remove and set aside.

2.    Add 3 Tbsp of oil, saute onions and pepper to soften.

3.    Add garlic (and chorizo, if usuing) and fry for a minute or so. Stir through tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes more.

4.    Add tomatoes and cook over a medium heat until slightly reduced. Remove from pan and set aside.

5.    Bring stock (and Saffron, if using) to the boil in a seperate saucepan. Heat the remaining oil in paella pan and stir-fry rice, paprika and a pinch of salt until well coated.

6.    Return onion mixture to pan and stir through rice. Add stock and bring to a boil

7.    Scatter over chicken and mussles and/or prawns.

8.    Cover with foil and reduce heat to a low simer. Scrape the base of pan from time to time, but do not stir.

9.    Add peas and simmer for 7 minutes more. Season to taste. Rice should be firm and a slight crust should have formed at the base of the paella.

10. Rest for 5 minutes and serve with lemon slices.

Serves 4-6

As you can see this recipe does require quite some preperation time but I think it will be well worth it in the end and I’m sure that your loved ones will appreciate every mouth full. Enjoy it!

Recipe taken from 'Fresh Living- Pick 'n pay' July 2016 Issue

S

Xoxo

June Favourites

'Better late than never' they say and I haven’t done a favourites post in quite some time so I figured that now is a good a time as any. This past month I haven’t really come across too many favourites but the ones that I have have really been worthwhile, here they are;

Sorbet, Luxurious oil, Hand cream:

I have always been a sucker for Sorbet products so when I saw this new range at my local Clicks I just had to dive into it. This new range is called the Sorbet “Sensual”. For starters the packaging is just so pretty so it catches your eye immediately. Let me just tell you about the scent of these products, it could have been in the most unattractive packaging but I still would have purchased it, the smell is that good! It’s filled with scents of exotic passion flower and citrus. Turkish rose and Sandalwood… I mean hello, that’s what I imagine the tears of angels to smell like (Okay no I’m joking) There is a total of six products in this range:                                                           

             Body bliss body cream (200ml) R 43.00

             Polish up salt scrub R 45.00

             Royal oil body spritzer R 39.00

             Soak it up body wash (250ml) R 46.00

             Splash and glow hand wash R 38.00

I started off with just the hand cream which retails at R 35.00, besides the smell I think this hand cream is glorious; it doesn’t leave your hands feeling tacky and like you need to go and wash the product right off. I will definitely will be going back for the rest of this range and I’d highly recommend that you do the very same

Victoria Secret, Love spell, Body Mist

For those of you who have come across my blog before this product will be of no surprise to you, for those of you who are new, now you know. I am crazy for these Victoria Secret body mist products. This particular one -Love spell- has notes of cherry blossom and peach. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea as it is quite floral but I for one really like it, it is more of a summer fragrance but heck there aren’t really any rules when it comes to that kind of thing - so all year round it is. I received this 125ml bottle along with a body cream and vanity bag as a gift so I cannot tell you what it retails for but I know that the bigger stand-alone bottles retail for about R 195.00 which is not a bad price to pay for a product such as this. There are so many scents to choose from that if this one doesn’t do it for you then, one of the others is bound to…

L.A Girl, Glazed lip paint – Elude

I have two of these L.A. Girl lip glazes, this is the most recent one in my vanity and I must say it quickly became one of my regular shades… These lip glazes are intensely pigmented like a lipstick with a lip-gloss finish to it. ‘Elude’ is a very wearable shade, with a good combination of pinky / orange and nude and we all know how I love those colours. It doesn’t leave a sticky mess on your lips, rather it keeps them moisturized and looking good, which is what we want. There are eighteen shades to choose from in this collection, from bright pinks to deep berry shades… Catering to all your needs and retailing at about R 47.00 each 

Let me know if you have tried any of these products and what you’d recommend for me to try next

S

Xoxo

             

Chocolate & vanilla marble loaf

My Mom owns an entire stack of recipe books with some truly great recipes buried within; I found one, it’s just glorious and really hits the spot for my ever increasing sweet tooth. This cake is perfect if you plan or even didn’t plan to have people over for tea and want something pretty to place on your table. Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients

225g Butter, softened

225g Caster sugar

275g Self raising flour

2 level tsp Baking powder

4 Large eggs

2 tbsp Milk

½ tsp Vanilla Extract

1 ½ level tbsp Cocoa powder

2 tbsp Hot water

Icing:

25g Butter

15g Cocoa powder, sifted

1-2 tbsp Milk

100g Icing Sugar, sifted

25g White chocolate, melted

Method

1.    Preheat the oven at 180. Lightly grease the tin and line with a wide strip of non- stick baking parchment to go up the wide sides and over the base of the tin.

2.    Measure the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and vanilla extract into a large bowl and beat with a hand –held electric mixer for about minutes, until well blended. Spoon half the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

3.    In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder and hot water together until smooth. Allow to cool slightly, then add to one of the bowls of cake mixture, mixing well until evenly blended.

4.    Spoon the vanilla and chocolate cake mixtures randomly into the prepared tin until all the mixture is used up, gently level the surface. Bake for 50 minutes- 1 hour, until the cake is well risen, springy to the touch and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin. Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack, peel the lining paper and leave to cool completely.

5.    To make the icing, melt the butter in a small pan, add the cocoa powder, stir to blend and cook gently for 1 minute. Stir in the milk and icing sugar, then remove from the heat and mix thoroughly, if necessary leave the icing on one side, stirring occasionally, to thicken. Spread the cold cake evenly with the icing, then drizzle the melted white chocolate over the top. Leave to set

Serves 10.

I really hope that you enjoy making this and more so, eating it! May this feature at many of your parties with many happy tummies

S

Xoxo

The do's & don'ts of matte lip products

Matte lip products in all their popularity and surrounding controversy begs the question; do I wear it? How do I wear it? What shade do I get? These questions present an endless list of uncertainties but fear not, keep reading and ill provide you with a few do’s and don’ts when it comes to these products. Best grab a pend and paper!

DO – Match your lip liner

This applies mainly to those who are opting for a bright, bold colour. Applying a lip liner prior to your matte lipstick is a good idea since this will prevent your lip colour from ‘bleeding’ (where your lipstick escapes the natural line of your lips). It’s also perhaps an even better idea to get a lip liner that matches the colour of your lipstick as best as possible, to avoid the dreaded 90’s inspired two toned look.

DON’T - Over apply it

Since matte lip products are not very moisturising (if at all), it kind of just sits and doesn’t really fade away as fast as what other lip products do. I know it’s tempting to keep reapplying your product in the hopes that it will bring some moisture to your lips but don’t, sit on those hands. Re-applying will just cause the product to pile up on top of your lips and the chance of it being even is pretty slim. If you really want to re-apply, first remove the remaining product on your lips with a wipe before applying a fresh coat.

DO – Keep your lips moisturised

This is probably my biggest fault when it comes to using matte lip products, I cannot stand when my lips aren’t moisturised so I make a point in applying lip ice before I apply my lip colour. This will avoid dehydration, flaking and will keep you lip colour looking fresh as can be. #Yay!

DO – Exfoliate

This goes hand in hand with keeping your lips moisturised, exfoliating will get rid of any dry flakiness and will help with a good application of you lip product. I like to use a ‘sugar lip scrub’ from “Beauty Treats”. I usually purchase this product at Dis-chem, it often comes in a variety of flavours and is very affordable.

DO – Pick the right shade

This is the most important, choosing a colour which is too light for your skin tone could make you look corpse like while choosing a colour too dark for your skin tone may stain your lips and wear badly. Opting for corals, reds and pinks is pretty much your safe zone. If that’s not your thing, then I say wear what feels right to you.

At the end of the day experimentation is always your best bet, I’d do it with lip products that are a little bit more on the affordable side before spending your hard earned cash on something expensive that you just might not like. Find out what works best for you and rock it! Happy shopping ;)

S

Xoxo