Discovering Podcasts

Commuting to work for me involves either a bus ride or walking, depending upon how active I'm feeling that day, and if I'm willing to get up extra early to get my waddle on. Which ever way I choose to do it, it's time in my day that I have to use travelling, I can't change this time for other activities, it's set, and it's not budging. 

I'm used to popping in my headphones and shuffling through my latest playlist on Spotify, or most recently (when my beloved data runs out), scrolling through my iTunes listening to the same songs on a daily basis. It wasn't until I read several blog posts on podcasts that I started to think maybe this is something I should delve into. I'm so behind when it comes to technology that I didn't even realise there was a separate app for pod casts on iTunes - not thinking it could be that easy to start listening.  I set myself up downloading several episodes of recommended podcasts ready for my walk to work, it was that simple and now I'm hooked.

Although I've got a fair few shows awaiting listening I've found myself continuously going back to the same ones; Being Boss and The Lively Show, I could not recommend these enough.  Although very different podcasts they both focus on the sense of journey's, looking at how creatives have got to where they are now, how they started and considerations along the way. As a creative it's lovely to hear thats it's not a super quick overnight process, and that in order to get to where you want to be you've got to do the work, it's always reassuring to know that other people have taken similar journey's to yourself. 

Podcasts have altered my commute, it's no longer wasted or dead time. I've found myself feeling a lot more motivated since I started listening, and there certainly helping with my new years resolutions of walking to work more.  If like me your a podcast newbie I'd certainly recommend trying them out, downloading means you can even listen on the tube with 100's of topics and shows to choose from. 

I just Wanna Bake - Homemade Chewy Toffee

Chewy Toffee was close at the top of my list of sweets to make, although sadly creating it did not go quite as smoothly as I'd imagined. It was in making this recipe for the first time that I realised quite how important a heavy based pan is when boiling sugar - it took me several attempts, a few different recipes and involved a trip to the bin. 

One of the things I love most about making sweets, and this is a strange one, is the research and experimenting involved when my first attempt doesn't quite go to plan, the scribbled notes all leading me towards the perfect combinations. With toffee I leaped in two feet first, hoping for the best. Now as previously mentioned this first attempt didn't go well, it was edible, it just wasn't toffee and it wasn't very nice, I had created a sort fudge/ toffee/ caramel high bred which had no chew to it whatsoever and so sadly into the bin it had to go. It was back to the recipe books, researching how to get the perfect toffee chewy-ness!! These are my top toffee making tips I discovered:

- If you want a chewy toffee cook the syrup to a temperature of between 245-275F

-If its firmer toffee's you desire cook to 320F

-Using a variety of sugars creates a more intense caramel flavour

-Do not leave the toffee's to set completely before cutting - or it's a super tricky task

-No matter how tempted you are DON'T stir the mixture when cooking

-Corn syrup = Golden syrup

Although I used a combination of recipes, my favourite one can be found here.

Ingredients:

-200ml cream (I used whipping but you can use others; single, double etc)

-165g Caster Sugar

-165g Soft Brown Sugar

-75g Unsalted Butter

-3 large Table Spoons of Golden Syrup

-1/4  Teaspoon Salt

-Vanilla Essence 

Before you start cooking, like with any recipe prepare your baking tray, line trays with parchment paper ready to pour the toffee into.

Firstly add the caster sugar and 30ml of water into your heavy based pan, melt until golden brown. Then take it off the heat and add your cream, butter, salt, brown sugar and golden syrup - place back onto boil, add your themometre to the side of then pan to keep a close eye on the toffee's rising temperature. DO NOT STIR. You don't want to cook the toffee on a super high heat or the sugar will burn, so keep it on a low-medium temperature, adjusting if you feel it's too high or might start to burn. Be patient. 

Continue cooking the mixture until you reach your desired boiling point, this will vary depending upon the texture of toffees you want. I cooked mine to 245/250F and these created a chewy toffee with a lovely texture. Then take off the heat and add in your vanilla essence. 

Pour the mixture into the prepared trays and leave to set. At this point it you wanted to add nuts of berries to your toffee's you can push them into the mixture while it's still soft and gooey, I left mine plain.

Don't leave your mixture to set completely or it'll be prove to be too hard to cut into pieces, but at the same time you don't want it to be too gooey to cut either. This really is a trial and error process, so you might want to test cutting the toffee every so often.

You can then wrap you toffee in parchment paper, creating individual sweets, and there we have it lovely chewy toffee. 

Grapefruit and Sugar: Birthdays and Valentines

One of my aims for this year was to establish 'Grapefruit and Sugar' more: both in terms of my blog and my design work. With this in mind I've spent the first few weeks of January mocking up ideas and making them come to life - in the form of Birthday and Valentines cards. I still have a few more to add, but the first bunch of 2015 lovely's can now be found on my Etsy. 

I'm so glad my little collection is starting to come together and that at least one of my resolutions is still going strong.

Resolutions: 2015

We are now well and truly into January, so I've had a fair bit of time to think about my resolutions and what I want to achieve from 2015. For me 2014 was a bit of a none year, I set out with no expectations of it, no goals I wanted to aim for, no accomplishments I needed to make and this was just how 2014 was, a bit of a close your eyes and see kind of year and it worked out ok. For 2015 however I'm hoping for more than ok, so I've decided to give resolutions another go:

'Biggies'
-Establish 'Grapefruit and Sugar' 
-Attend Craft fairs
-Continue Spanish classes (practice)
-Screen print
-Travel somewhere beautiful!

'Babies'
-Walk to work
-Read 
-Blog on a more regular basis
-Don't take London for granted
-Knit

...fingers crossed!

I just Wanna Bake - Homemade Jazzies

I very belated Happy New Year!

This weeks sweet recipe is a super simple one, but such a favourite of mine - the ever yummy Jazzie! 
Ingredients:
100g White Chocolate 
Hundred and Thousands 
(Milk and Dark Chocolate also work wonders)

Firstly line a tray with grease proof paper, or two trays depending upon your desired quantity. Now you can begin melting the chocolate, for best results place a glass bowl over a source pan of boiling water - ensuring that the bowl is not touching the water. Break up the chocolate into pieces and place into the bowl. 

Melting white chocolate is slightly more tricky than milk or dark, due its lower burning point it can tend to overheat quickly, becoming stodgy and unusable. It's important to keep a close eye on it when melting. A great trick is to take the chocolate off the boil before it is all completely melted, the remaining lumps will melt if you continue to stir the chocolate and by removing it from the heat it won't overheat. Melt on a medium heat. 

Now that the chocolate is ready take a teaspoon and start creating chocolate disks on the grease proof paper, these can be any size and thickness you prefer. I made a mixer of sizes for mine. With your disks completed you can add the hundreds and thousands to the top, simple sprinkle over the chocolate while its still warm. You may want to gently press them into the chocolate to ensure they stay in place. All you need to do now is wait for the disks to cool, when ready they can easily be removed from the grease proof paper and are ready to eat. 

Grapefruit and Sugar: Christmas Range

You may have read my recent post on stopping putting your aspirations on hold and seen that a big aspiration for me is designing more. 

With this is mind several weeks ago I set about designing my first real range for my little company 'Grapefruit and Sugar'. I've previously attending craft fairs and tried selling on Etsy, but with products I'd designed at uni, meaning none really sat together has a range. So I thought it was about time I injected some brand spanking new designs into 'Grapefruit and Sugar' and thus my Christmas range was born. 

I realise it's quite late to be showing you these designs now with Christmas only a week away, but there will be new ranges to follow in the next few weeks. I uploaded my designs onto Etsy in the beginning of December, and have had such a lovely response. I'd never sold an item on Etsy before, so it was such a wonderful and shocking feeling when my first sale went through. 

These are a selection of my Christmas designs and you can see the full range here.

I just wanna Bake - Homemade Honeycomb

Since buying a sugar thermometer I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of making my own sweets, so I thought why not turn my 'I just Wanna Bake' post on Homemade Marshmallows  into a regular feature. I'm going to be creating different sweets each week and sharing my results; the good, the bad and the straight into the bin! 

This weeks sweet of choice is Honeycomb, or as I've had to describe to some of my friends, the none chocolate part of a crunchie!! After looking up multiple recipes online I settled on one from Nigella, slightly adjusting her quantities to suit my more greedy needs! 

Ingredients:

200g Caster sugar

7 Heaped tablespoons of Golden syrup

3 Teaspoons Bicarbonate of Soda

The essential item for this, and the majority of the sweets I will be making is a sugar thermometer, and as I recently discovered a heavy based pan. The pan really does make a massive difference, I tried using a normal saucepan while making toffee and it just caused the sugar to burn rapidly, swap to a lovely hard based pan and my results improved dramatically.

Into my wonderful hard based pan I added both the Caster sugar and Golden syrup, mixing the two together slightly with a wooden spoon (although you'll want to be sure not to stir the mixture once the hob is turned on). Turn on the hob and cook on a medium heat, ensuring that your sugar thermometer is attached to the side of the pan so you can clearly see the temperature. You can how my mixture started out below- golden in colour.

You want the mixture to reach 149C on your sugar thermometer, otherwise known has the hard crack stage - this may take some time but be patient and don't wander off from your pan of you could miss the crucial temperature.You'll see the mixture bubble away from a beautiful golden colour into a much darker maple shade - you can see mine below.

Once you reach 149C take the pan off the heat and add the 3 teaspoons of bicarb powder, whisk this into the mixture, as you do so you'll see the mixture erupt into a gorgeous mass of liquid gold. You'll then want to act quickly, pouring the mixture into baking tray or dish lined with parchment paper. 

Leave the Honeycomb to set, when it has completely cooled you can remove the parchment paper and smash it into chunks. If your feeling extra jazzy you could then dip the honeycomb chunks into melted chocolate - creating your very own crunches! 

The length of time the honeycomb can be kept for depends upon the humidity, if your in a hot climate it won't keep as well and will tend to soften faster. Having baked mine in December I'm hopeful I can store it for several weeks, if kept in an airtight container, I've also wrapped my batch up in parchment paper to increase its freshness. 

I'd love to hear any tips of suggestions, have you tried making this recipe yourself? How did yours turn out?