The Best Christmas Cake Recipe

Every year I find I'm rushing to get my Christmas cakes made, but this year I'm going to be on top of it! My recipe of choice is a Light Luxury Fruit Cake from the book Boutique Baking by Peggy Porschen. It's a recipe that I have used for years and everyone loves it! The alcohol used to flavour and feed the cake is whiskey, this takes the edge off the sweet taste of the cake which makes it very moorish! I don't usually eat fruit cake but I can't resist a slice of this with a cup of tea at Christmas time. I make quite a few of these as I like to give them as gifts, or rather they are in much demand and now very much expected as gifts every year- which makes it easy for me as I get to be creative and not go gift shopping, Woohoo!

I times the ingredient quantities by 5 and used 6 and a half inch cake tins opposed to 6x8 oval tins used in the book. I then fill them slightly higher as I don't like flat looking cakes.

The recipe is so easy to do, just remember that the fruit needs to be soaked over night. They also take roughly 2 hours to bake so make sure you have enough time to bake however many you make, depending on how many cake tins you have and how many you can fit into your oven. I bake 2 at a time.



























I always seem to overhear other people bragging that they've made their Christmas cakes and done all their Christmas shopping around this time of year, but I like to leave it nearer to December as the smell is so Christmassy and really gets me into the spirit. Plus I have decided that Amazon Prime is the way to go with gift buying this year as I can't face going to the shops wasting my time, panic buying rubbish gifts! How do you do your Christmas shopping? and when do you make your Christmas cakes? I'd love to see your comments below! Thanks for reading.

Paleo Treats!

We are going away on holiday to Cornwall for a few days with friends and I can’t wait! We will be camping (or glamping) in a huge tent in three different locations around the North coast of Cornwall. So I have prepared some Paleo treats to take with us as I want to be mostly good and stick to my lifestyle, although I am so going to have a Cornish clotted cream Tea …Ooh and a Pasty! The double ended ones, one side with sweet and the other savoury!

Anyway, Im taking these lovely Protein Brownies, I modified this recipe: http://thebigmansworld.com/2015/10/28/four-ingredient-flourless-protein-brownies/ and created my own to use up some eggs and make them look pretty with some walnuts that needed using up

I’m also taking this enormous Berry Cobbler Recipe here: https://wellnessmama.com/3740/berry-cobbler/ I used raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and also some peaches that needed using up. There are four of us going in total so I made sure I made plenty as I know they probably won’t last the week!

Hope your enjoying the last week of the school holidays!

Bedroom Decor Tour

Four and a half years ago, my boyfriend and I bought our lovely flat. When we moved in, the flat was a concrete shell and a complete blank canvas. I have done a lot of experimentation with different interior design styles, and it’s only now that I feel completely happy with this room. It’s gone from being cream, navy blue and finally white walls. The windows in the flat aren’t huge and face another block of flats, so there isn’t a huge amount of light coming in.

Making the walls white has opened the space up and made it feel much fresher and lighter. I also got lighter coloured curtains, as I massacred the last ones by cutting them much too short. Primark do these enormous long grey curtains for half the price and I kept them floor length and raised the curtain pole, and this has really given some height to the room.

I love our enormous bed from IKEA, however as it is a European King size bed, most other bed sets do not fit. However I love this patterned one from Ikea, Im not usually into colour and pattern but I will defiantly be trying to top this one. Our bedside tables are also from IKEA, however I would like to change them as soon as I have some spare cash …so maybe in the next twenty years then! 

The most recent purchase is this humongous mirror also from IKEA, I’d been eying it up for ages but it wouldn’t fit into our car and there is no way I’m paying £35 for delivery! Anyhow, I’d told my mum about it and we were going to go and get it in her larger car one day, but she surprised us and my parents gifted it to us - thanks Mum and Dad! I think it makes our bedroom look so much more stylish and sophisticated now.

The lamps were a good find in Home Sense - Love that shop! And they were around £16 each. And then I have all my plants on the window sill as it seems to be the place that all my plants love - plus Robin our cat can’t eat them as this room is off limits to cats. Behind double doors is our built in wardrobe and an ensuite through the door next to the mirror. What has made the biggest difference to this room over the years has been really stripping everything back and making it much more minimal, this makes it feel calmer and tidier and so much easier to keep it clean!

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A Visit to the Barbican Conservatory

I have wanted to go to the Barbican Conservatory ever since I heard about it a year ago. I love to find out about not so secret places like this, something a bit different and here in the middle of a concrete jungle is a jungle. I love plants, but it has been a steep learning curve for me to keep them alive! And as bringing the outside in has become a trend, it’s got me all enthusiastic about seeing all of the different plant varieties that I could possibly own at home. I didn’t really know what to expect but I wasn’t disappointed, it felt like another world when stepping into the conservatory, even my fiancé liked it, he said it felt like a film set of another planet (we had just come out of the exhibition at the Barbican ‘Into the Unknown: a journey through science fiction’) Its like the plants had taken over and created a mini paradise. I only wished it was bigger...

Outside Inside, Inside Outside

I was recently listening to a podcast all about thyroid issues and Hashimoto’s - I know sounds riveting doesn’t it?! But the podcast is called the Model Health Show and I love it! they can turn a topic like this one into something that is so interesting that you can’t put it down, it’s so relatable and full of information and so many ah ha moments.

Anyway, they were talking about how your genes can mean that you could be lumbered with some really horrible diseases and illnesses as they are passed through your family generations, however it can completely depend on your environment if those genes will express themselves or not. Take for example you have a family history of Cardiovascular disease, meaning that most of your family’s life ends with a heart attack, and you decide to live your life by eating processed rubbish food and doing minimal exercise,  your body will more likely express it self with a heart attack following your family’s genetic pattern. Compared to you deciding to live a healthy diet and exercise three to four times a week, your body will more likely express its genes in a much more healthier and positive way. This example is very comparable to you in your physical environment, if you live in a messy disorganised place that directs you to the sofa in front of the tv, then of course you will express yourself in a non motivated disorganised way. So think of your home and your goals and what you want out of your life, does your home motivate you to be the best version of yourself? Do you feel like working out and working hard, or are you filled with stress and anxiety the moment you walk in?

This is the question that I have been focusing on the past few months and so I have been taking action to motivate myself to live a much healthier and happier lifestyle.

What makes you feel motivated to work on your dreams and ambitions?

February Photos...

Last month in February I went to visit one of my oldest friends who lives not too far from Weston-super-Mare Beach, we went for a walk along the sea front and I have to say that I have always disliked being at the seaside when it is so gloomy and cold, but this time I actually really enjoyed myself. I took my camera along to capture some moments and it has made me fall in love with photography again. Here are a few of my favourite shots:

New Year, New Me?...

2017 has been the first year in quite a few years that I am deciding to do resolutions, I think 2016 was a year to learn lessons and I feel this year is the year to start working hard. I have a whole list of goals that I'm so excited to continue working on, but here are my four resolutions:

1. Don't give up so easily.

I never finish anything I start, I found loads of unfinished craft projects, ideas, and plans last year while clearing out my flat and I ended up throwing most of them out as I've completely lost interest and motivation to complete them. I feel so much better now they aren't lurking around my flat making me feel bad. They were constantly on my do to list and this overwhelmed me and made me less productive because I could never tick them off, so I've narrowed my to do list down to things that are the most important to me in my life. This means that I am much clearer in what goals I'm aiming for and so I get a lot more out of my efforts.

2.  I have learnt that I need to be less focused on the outcome and more on the process,

So this is that saying about how do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time!

but I also want to enjoy each process at the time as well, learning from mistakes and experimentations as well as feeling good when something works out.

3. Try to listen out for that little voice in my head that talks me into being lazy

I've come to know this voice so well, it sneaks into my thoughts and completely convinces me to do something else without me realising it, I would be folding the washing to put it away and then the little voice would say 'this is too much effort, leave the washing and put it away later' then the days pass and the washing gets left, mixing with dirty washing and just getting into a mess, when it could have all been neatly put away but instead I was lazy. These sort of house maintenance tasks all take roughly 10-15 mins like the washing up, tidying up etc and it makes me feel so much happier when they are done and tidy.

4. Take care of myself

I always find something more important to do than taking care of myself, anything would be more important and I would end up feeling run down and a bit rubbish about myself. So this year I want to take the time to do things like maintaining my nails once a week or actually using the rare bath bomb I get BEFORE the expiry date.

I am motivated to make this year great by trying my best, I hope your year will be great too!