Christmas Jumpers & A Catch Up

Morning guys and welcome to Blogmas Day 19! Can you believe it's less than a week until Christmas? I don't know about you guys but I am so so excited!

This week has been a fun one. Usually I don't get up to that much during the week, apart from going to work I'm generally a bit of a hermit but this week it's all been 'go'.

On Tuesday we had a bit of a family gathering round at my brother's house as it was his birthday. We got the chance to mingle with his partners family and just have some quality family time. I spent half my evening cuddling the puppy and the other half wolfing down mozzarella sticks and all sorts of other buffet goodness. I think my brother really enjoyed his day ( I hope he did).

Wednesday evenings, as you may or may not know, is the evening that I meet up with my dad for a Coffee so it was nice to see him, as always. After that, not long after I got home one of my bestest friends Fern called me up as she had just finished University for the Winter. Next thing I knew we were on our way to Frankies & Bennies out for dinner. It was so much fun, it's always lovely to see Fern, she is one of my oldest friends and is such a laugh. PS. I would 100% recommend anyone who loves Peanut Butter to make their way to F&B's asap, Fern & I both had one each and we were left speechless, it was amaze!

Last night I totted round to my other friends house, Katie. My Sister & I got invited over for Tea which was really nice. We got the opportunity to explore her new house and had the chance to have a real catch up. Me and Christy also made an excuse to wear our new Christmas Jumpers - duh!  Mine is a quote from Elf in case you were wondering! Katie made me an amazing Hot Chocolate in a Kilner jar with a Matchmaker dipped in it and loads of squirty cream on top, mmm! We had such a laugh, my jaw was actually hurting from laughing!

And of course, tonight is Mad Friday (the last Friday before Christmas) which definitely calls for going out into town with my best friend April for drinks and also hopefully bumping into other familiar faces along the way. I can't wait to get into the festive spirit and shout my head off to The Pogues - Fairytale of New York!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend and  I will check in with you all tomorrow!

A Christmas Treat - Gingerbread Cupcakes

Morning guys and welcome to day 2 of Blogmas! It wouldn't be Blogmas without some festive baking now would it?! So today I thought I would show you guys how to make some super festive Gingerbread Cupcakes.

Now, I'm not professional baker but it's something I love doing, even more so at Christmas time. These Gingerbread Cupcakes are inspired by the ones I've seen in Costa and I thought I would give it a go at putting my own spin on them.

So let's get down to business...

What You'll Need

• 3 & 1/2 Cups of Self Raising Flour
• 1 TBSP Baking Powder
• 1 & 1/2 TBSP Ground Ginger
• 1 TSP Cinnamon
• 1 TSP Ground Cloves (Optional, I used these as the recipe indicated but I would advise leaving them out as they don't break up even when you whisk them and have a very strong taste!)
• 200g Butter (Again optional! I actually forgot to put Butter in my recipe but they still turned out very nice!)
• 1 Cup Golden Syrup
• 3 Eggs
• 1 Cup of Brown Sugar
• 1 Cup of Hot Water

The Method

As usual with the majority of my baking recipes - they're all pretty simple. You can either do the all in one method with this mixture and then blast the electric whisk on the ingredients once they're all in the bowl or you can add ingredients in gradually at your leisure. There is no right or wrong way of doing this!

The mixture makes enough for about 20 Cupcakes. Set your oven to 180 degrees and bake between 10 -15 minutes (all ovens vary).

One you've cooked your Gingerbread Muffins you need to let them cool - NOTE your kitchen will smell all lovely and festive! Whilst the Muffins are cooling you need to make the Buttercream which is just a basic Buttercream Frosting - 1 Cup of Butter & 2 Cups of Icing Sugar. Stick to that ratio and you're good to go.  Give it a good whisk and then decorate however you like. I did a mixture between mini Lindor Reindeers & Santa's, Milky Buttons and Chocolate Chips and then dusted them all with icing to give that lovely Snowwy effect.

Hope you guys enjoyed this post! If you have any Christmas inspired baking recipes please do let me know in the comments below, I would love to see what you're all whipping up in the kitchen!