Not Just Rocks

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Pumpkin Trifle

Recently, I've been super-obsessed with all things Halloween. We never really celebrated Halloween in the UK very much while I was growing up. Possibly because it was too close to Bonfire night, which has always been a more important festival, with fireworks, sparklers and bonfires. I love Halloween though, so I'm really glad that it's becoming more popular now as it gives me an excuse to have a silly party, dress up, and make lots of pumpkin-based food. The party isn't for another 10 days, but I've been planning for ages, and practising the desserts I want to make. Today, I attempted a pumpkin, white chocolate and ginger trifle.

I'd found a few recipes with layered pumpkin/cream cheese mixtures, which looked good. I took the basics from one of these, but I wanted to keep as close as possible to a proper trifle basis of sponge, whipped cream and custard, so I decided to match it up with some white chocolate custard, ginger cake and ginger biscuits, with whipped cream on top filled with white chocolate chips and biscuit crumbs.

Due to the lack of cans of pumpkin puree or pumpkin pie filling, I bought a small-medium sized pumpkin and skooped out as much of the flesh as I could. I then boiled it, strained it a lot and pureed it. This is time-consuming, but if you're having a Halloween party, you're going to need pumpkins for carving anyway.

The recipe is below, but first a couple of tips about the white chocolate custard: 1) stir like crazy or you'll end up with scrambled eggs; 2) don't taste it, or it'll never make it to the trifle and you'll discover you've eaten a whole bowl of custard.

Pumpkin mixture: (double this if you want to make it more pumpkiny)

1 cup of pumpkin puree
half an ounce of melted butter
8oz cream cheese
half a cup of caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
half tsp nutmeg
half tsp mixed spice

Other Ingredients:

White chocolate custard
Ginger biscuits of your choice
Ginger cake (I used McVittie's Jamaican ginger cake)
Whipping cream
White chocolate chips

Method:

1. Make the custard. Slice the cake into even slices and use it to line the bottom of a large bowl. Pour over the custard.
2. Arrange the biscuits (either whole or crushed) on top of the custard to form another layer. Leave to cool.
3. Melt the butter and stir in all the pumpkin mixture ingredients. Pour over the top of the trifle.
4. Top off with whipped cream sprinkled with chocolate chips and crushed biscuits.

Friday, 14 September 2012

Trials and Tribulations of Eyeliner

So, last year, I found a great eyeliner. I work 10 hour days, and inevitably, my eyeliner would have mostly disappeared by 8 hours in, and I'd end the day looking pale and washed out. I'd tried so many different ones, from cheap to top of the range, and nothing made a difference.

Last December, I found a mineral eyeliner from Art Deco at a beauty show. The lady at the counter promised that it was long lasting, and would stay on for 10 hours, so I gave it a try. I'd never tried any mineral make up before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was really please with this eyeliner, it pretty much did what the lady had said and stayed on for the whole 10 hours. It faded slightly and wasn't as defined as when it was fresh, but other than that it was great. Also, it lasted ages. I started using it last December and it only ran out 3 weeks ago.

Of course, having finally found a product that worked for me, I immediately went to buy a replacement. It was really hard to track down online. Art Deco themselves didn't have any in stock. Most companies that advertised it were in Germany or Holland and don't deliver to the UK. I eventually found a company that sold it, and they had an outlet near where I work. I went along, and they were out of stock.

*sigh*

I was told there would be a delivery in a few days, so a few days later I went back. Nothing. I went back again a few days after that. More nothing.

I gave up and bought it on their website.

Then I got an e-mail. Art Deco had discontinued it and there weren't any available.

Argh!

So, back to square one. At least now I knew that mineral eyeliners were the way to go, as they really are much longer lasting. Bare Minerals seems to have made quite a reputation for itself, so I headed to a nearby department store and bought the only black eyeliner they produce, keeping my fingers crossed.

I tried it for the first time today. I put it on 12 hours ago. It's still there. It's brilliant. A really great black hue, it goes on super-easily, it's really soft to put on and it stays in place amazingly. A tiny bit has rubbed off in the corner of one eye, but that's all. I am, in fact, slightly worried I'm not going to be able to take it off later.

So, I love it. I'm glad Art Deco's one isn't available now, or I wouldn't have found this one. If you're looking for a decent mineral eyeliner, I heartily recommend trying Bare Minerals.

Monday, 3 September 2012

Things I've been doing

I've been a bit rubbish at posting, mainly due to work but also due to feeling rubbish because of a growing wisdom tooth. Seriously, why are they called wisdom teeth? They should be re-named painful, unnecessary, stupid teeth.

1. Anyway......I have been making jewellery, even if I haven't been blogging about it. I made a necklace for my friend's birthday, which I totally forgot to take a photo of. Clever, eh? I also made three of these for some people who blog about tea.

Tiny teapots! So cute. I made one with an amethyst bead, one with garnet and one with rose quartz. I'm not sure if I'm going to make any to sell, or just leave them as a one-off for the bloggers.

I also made these malachite earrings, which I've put on Etsy, and a couple of necklaces which will be going on there if I ever take a decent photo of them.

2. I've been baking. We took advantage of some nice weather a few days ago and went fruit picking, so I made a damson and blackberry crumble and some lovely blackberry muffins. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I took one for blueberry muffins from a recipe book I have and altered it a bit. I've put it below, as I want to make it again and I'm bound to forget what I did.