How crazy have the last couple of months been?!
I have a new blog up and another in the making -a little silly considering how slack I am already with this one....
Anyway, most of you will be recovering from the holiday period (some of you may still be recovering from new years eve festivities), I don't know about anyone else but it's been a bit hectic for me -and I still wasn't spared from the flu! In summer! What?!
I'll start with the slushy maker I guess..
SO. I like slushies. I couldn't tell you why, I just do. I've never really liked hot drinks much. I like coffee -but I prefer it iced. I like tea, but again, iced is better.
I also don't really like "flat" drinks, things like juice on it's own or whatever. I like texture in my drinks and I get it from bubbles or ice or pulp.
I got given a chill factor slushy maker for christmas, and reading the instructions, it seemed like a pretty simple thing to use.
Seemed lol
The basic concept is pretty simple really, you freeze the cup then add your drink then squeeze the cup until your drink is all slushified.
You can only put a small amount of liquid in at a time though, and while it did freeze it reasonably quickly, I found that it wasn't fluid like storebought slushies and there was no way I was going to get that up the straw provided.
I used kool aid (water, soda water, kool aid, artificial sweetener) so I dunno maybe it would work better with other drink? I'm on the sugarfree drink train though (and not complaining either because kool aid is amazing, why don't we have this in the supermarkets?!)
Once I got some into my mouth with the provided scoop it was more like I'd bitten off a chunk of ice block than scooped out some slushy.
At the end of the day while this doesn't give the slushy it claims to, it's still a pretty good product for summer I think -and definitely easier than sticking some ice in the blender!
Now let's talk about holiday baking or christmas baking if you want.
I wouldn't say I "celebrate" christmas because christmas doesn't mean anything to me and I find it an incredibly awkward time at the family (not mine) gathering I go to each year, but I do give gifts where I can.
I guess it's partly out of obligation (I'm being given things so I feel rude not to give something also) but also because it's convenient -things are often more on special at that time of year.
Last year money was a bit tight all round, I was caring for my flatmate who had had a pretty significant surgery only a few weeks before and he wasn't exactly able to go out to buy gifts for his family either so I ended up making... well basically cake pops without the sticks.
I decided I wanted to make something again this year to save money, and because I don't know what the cupcakes to buy for these people haha!
I eventually decided on shortbread. I asked my mum about it she said just find something with lots of sugar and butter. Easy, right? Flour sugar butter.
Turns out that shortbread is my eggs of the baking realm.
(Eggs never turn out right for me. Ever. They just don't go how they're supposed to)
I did a couple of trial batches of shortbread before I found an ok place but despite having a recipe given to me by a CHEF ..a few things weren't going my way!
I also hate my oven. It didn't help.
I also made candy cane bark. That was easier than the shortbread!
Candy cane bark is basically chocolate and candy canes. Crush candy canes, melt white chocolate, mix em together, pour onto a tray.
SO. A couple of tips for festive baking.
I wanted to put some mini m&ms or something in the shortbread to liven it up a bit -but those are expensive!
I had some coloured sugar crystals from something I'd made some other time so I poured in green sugar and pink sugar (didn't have red) to each batch.
You can make coloured sugar yourself too!
Recently I got some candy cane hershey's kisses and I liked how it had little things sorta like hundreds and thousands in them -I wanted to recreate that texture with the candy cane bark so I..
I uh.. well I put hundreds and thousands in them...
It's good! I promise!
Next time I will post about home made tomato sauce! (The joys of having so many allergies)
~^_^~
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