Cupcakes & early Christmas presents!

It was my office Christmas party on Friday which was fun but messy on my part, let's not go into details! Needless to say, all day Saturday was spent nursing a massive hangover. My friend Pia came around and made the hangover slightly less awful, we went shopping and went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park (overrated if you ask me, although it could be that I am biased due to an unfortunate combination of a sore head and screaming kids).

We exchanged presents as well, she had made me an AWESOME box full of embroidery stuff so we can get started on our new hobby. Isn't it pretty?

She even made me cute little needle cushions!

And since this post is dedicated to lovely things, I thought I'd add a few baking pics from tonight. We have another charity cake sale at work tomorrow and I have made a huge batch of banana cupcakes with sinfully delicious white chocolate frosting. Definitely not for the faint of heart, in fact I feel semi-sick after a few too many tastes.

Pretty polkadot cases imported from Brussels

White chocolate. Mmmm!

The finished cupcakes in all their glory, may they make someone's belly very happy!

And finally, a much better picture of our Christmas tree than in my previous post

Now I need to finish some work. Oh sweet, sweet Thursday come soon!

It's beginning to look a (hell of a) lot like Christmas

Words cannot describe how much I am looking forward to the Christmas break. I finish work on Thursday and won't be back at the office until 4th January, which is a glorious feeling.

I am going to Brussels on the 23rd at some ungodly hour* and can't wait to catch up on some family Christmas traditions such as watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and helping out at my mum's shop.

Just a few more days at work, you can doooo iiiiiiit!



*6.20 am. At least the tickets were cheap!

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Here's a little taster of what's been keeping me verrrrry busy lately...



This is hopefully warming the hearts of the Danish people (or the few that actually have this channel) as we speak.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Okay, it's December 1st! And that means I am officially allowed to obsess over Christmas, yay!

Every year my grandma gives me one of those scratch card Christmas calendars and I always buy myself a chocolate calendar, but this year I totally forgot to buy a chocolate one and my gran's Christmas calendar was still in a drawer when I came home from work. Is this what being an adult means?! If so, it kind of blows. I have been and continue to be extremely busy at work and it's causing me to forget the true joy of Christmas. Sigh, at least I go on holiday in two and a half weeks!

Tonight we decorated the Christmas tree and I have to say it's looking particularly awesome this year, wouldn't you agree? Unfortunately my camera doesn't seem to capture the magic of the fairy lights at all, it looks much more splendid IRL.

And here's a close up of one of the hand stitched fabric hearts that me and Pia made a few weeks ago.

This year everything has been carefully attached by pretty silk ribbons in black or hot pink so the tree is kitty-proof.

Happy December 1st!

Edit: It would appear I got so carried away with my decorations that is in fact now December 2nd. Bedtime!

I love you like a fat kid loves cake

I do apologise for the lack of updates in the last week but I have been incredibly busy with work deadlines and being ill. Not a fun combination, I tell you!

Anyway, this post is basically just an excuse to post photographic evidence of the culinary delights I've somehow managed to squeeze in.

Last Sunday I had my friend Pia over for an afternoon in the name of craftiness and æbleskiver, which is a very Danish Christmas tradition. I know I said I wasn't going to give in yet but y'know, it's just cake and they were DAMN tasty if I do say so myself! And Pia certainly seems to think so...

Then yesterday we had some of Daniel's family over for lunch. Daniel made a delicious pasta dish with aubergine and tomato and I got up early and made ciabatta bread (no pics, sorry!) and a chocolate and raspberry cake. It's one of those cakes with no flour in it, just ground almonds and walnuts, mmm! I customised it by adding fresh raspberries before popping it in the oven and it turned out really well.

I am pretty confident in a kitchen but sometimes when I have a lot going on at work or in my life in general I am more likely to fuck up a recipe (which is one of the worst things I know) so I'm always pleased when something turns out particularly well. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a picture of the cake while it was still whole and the picture of my slice below doesn't really do the cake justice, but here goes...

  

And finally today I made an awesome soup with chicken, noodles, spring onions and fresh herbs and it was delicious!

 

And the best thing is that I am still losing weight. That's the beauty of stress!

The hardest of hearts

I absolutely love Christmas. Completely and unconditionally. Every year I find myself getting extremely excited about big coats, long scarves & mittens, ice skates, Starbucks' red cups, pretty gift wrap, Phil Spector's Christmas hits, mulled wine and lame TV Christmas movies. This in itself isn't the problem. The problem is that I start getting excited about all of this around mid-October. And every year I find that around mid-December, the novelty has worn off and Christmas becomes this big, stressful anticlimax.

This year I am really trying not to give in to my cravings. It's pretty hard to avoid the whole hoo-ha when living in central London, as Oxford Street has been blinged up with tacky lights for several weeks now. And at work, Christmas has been on my daily agenda for ages.

I do love you Christmas, I really do, but I just can't bear to spoil it for myself this year. So I won't allow myself to give in to the cheer until 1st December, where I'll be decorating my Christmas tree with these, amongst others:

Yeah, I couldn't help myself.