Cocoa Brown The Goddess Collection In-Store Launch

I went along to the Cocoa Brown launch for The Goddess Collection on Tuesday. Last week tickets for the launch went online for free and included a goodie bag. It took place over in Dundrum in Penney's and I went over with my Mam and 3 sisters. I also got to meet the lovely Marissa Carter who is as lovely as she seem on her snapchat and the other ladies from Cocoa Brown who are all so friendly too. It was a really nice atmosphere and I even got a picture with Marissa. 

I had never used any of the goddess oils before even though I keep meaning to try one out, so off course I had to get the collection and give them all a go. I can see myself getting a bit addicted to these and walking around like a human disco ball but at least I'll be happy.

In Goddess collection was €13 for 3 30ml bottles, one of each of the shades which are Golden Goddess, Ice Goddess (the newest) and Rose Gold Goddess. I can imagine these being very handy for the christmas season and the even have that gorgeous smell as the other cocoa brown products.

When I registered for my ticket it said I'd get a goodie bag and oh my god was it and amazing goodie bag! In the goodie bag it contained Chocolate Whip Oil-Free body moisturiser 200ml, Kind Shampoo and Conditioner 200ml, Night and Day Tan 150ml can, tough stuff 75ml and last but not least 5oml tube of Bronzing Gel instant tan in matte. How amazing is this goodie bag I've used and loved some of these already but have yet to try the night and day tan and the bronzing gel so now I have no excuse and since my summer tan has completely disappeared now I can see them being tried out pretty soon. 

What I love most about all these are that I suffer from eczema and I can use them with out a problem. The Cocoa Brown tan was the first tan that I successfully used and didn't make my skin irritated or make the eczema stand out more. I recently started using the shampoo and conditioner when my hands started to break out again from the changing weather and it doesn't irritate them or sting at all which is fantastic most of the others I've used over the years usually have no fragrance and my hair doesn't last all that long between washes so I've already fallen in love with it and they are all pretty good price wise too and everywhere. If they were to bring out a shower gel I'd be over the moon!

Surprise Baby Shower

My sister is due a baby next month and so I wanted to throw her a surprise baby shower. I've had great help from my mam and sisters organising it all. 

The theme for the party was afternoon tea so lots of cakes, treats and bunting. Since she will only find out the baby's gender once it's born I tried to keep it as natural as possible. It may have turned out a little girlier then I had first thought it would but it's very much my sisters style and pretty so I knew she would like it.

The decorations.

Bunting is from dunnes stores (multicolor) and starbuys (flowery) and cost less than €5 for both.
I also got the 3 paper pompoms in dunnes Stores for about €3 and the bigger white one in Ikea.

The yellow babyshower banner I got in Mr.Price as well as the purple babyshower balloons, paper plates and the guest badges. I headed to ikea again to pick up some fabric for a tablecloth, I wanted something floral and I knew I had seen the fabric there before. I got 2 meters for €12, while I was there I also got some flower napkins and pastel ribbon. 

For the balloons I got a disposable helium tank in Argos for 27.99 which blew up 30 of them. I am not the biggest fan of them so I got my sister to blow them up for me and another to arrange them all. I got the clear balloons in Tescos for about €3 and the coloured ones in starbuys for a couple of euro.

The invitation.

I made these myself at home but printing out my invitation on card from the art and hobby shop and used some patterned cardboard as the surround, I used different colors like pink, blue, yellow and green and mixed and match them with coloured envelopes like a pink invite in a blue envelope.

Prediction cards.

I found a template for the surround online and added in my details on the inside, then changed the size before printing and again used the card that I used for the invites. I also added the date of the shower to the bottom of it. After the shower we had a little peek at these the messages where lovely and we will wait and see if any one got the right predictions. 

The food.

As the theme was a tea party I wanted to keep the food to small bites. 

I made baby shower themed mini cupcakes, macarons, finger sandwiches and a small chocolate and buttercream cake topped with fresh strawberries.

 My sister Siobhán made gluten free rock buns and gorgeous chocolate truffles and my sister clodagh made chocolate covered strawberries. 

Áisling really enjoyed the surprise and couldn't believe we had all kept it from her this whole time. Everyone brought her such lovely gift, I don't think any of us expected so much they ll so great. 

Chocolate biscuit cake tutorial

Filmed this ages ago but have only gotten around to editing it now. I don't have any editing software on my chromebook and can't download any so  used wevideo which I didn't find that great actually. Think I'll be finding myself something else next time. Anyway here it is the easiest cake you will ever make.

All you need fot this is a few ingredients and the most you will do is melt then and mix them. Here is what you need 200g chocolate (50%), 50g unsalted butter, 1 can condensed milk, 175g rich tea biscuits.

I make this a little different somethings adding a spoonful of honey and mix the biscuits up by using different kinds with different flavours you could also add marshmallows too if you would like. 

Latest Bakes

I have been baking a bit over the last few weeks with Halloween it's always fun to make festive treats. I ended baking so many cupcakes but they all found good homes in the end. These ones are vanilla cupcakes uncoloured some of the others where multicoloured sponge and vanilla butter cream.

I love these cupcake boxes. My sister got loads of them a while ago and gave me some for these. I made about 10 boxes of these cupcakes.

These are the toppers that I made for the cupcakes I was only making a few at the beginning but just kept coming up with new ideas so here is the result.

This week I was also making a birthday cake. I made a cake for them a few months ago and they wanted more or less the same but smaller. It's so much chocolate in this cake I wish I could have eaten some myself. It's chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge filling and also chocolate fudge on the outside with chocolate butter cream piped around the top and bottom of the cake. The inside was full of smarties so when it was cut open they would all fall out. I couldn't find a cake board for this cake so had to get one a little bit bigger then but then  had no box to fit it in. I figured it all out in the end but these little things drive me crazy, the baking and decorating I love though. 

I also have a bit of good news with the baking. Not only do I have a half table at a Christmas fair at the end of this month but I also have a full table at an event next week too. Next week's event has a theme so I will be busy this week trying out some ideas which will be so fun. This will be my first stall for cupcakes and I'm very excited about it. I had applied for a table at this event before but they already had a cupcake table and after a mix up had to refund me my money but then yesterday I got a call offering it to me if I was still interested as the original cupcake person pulled out. They even offered me the table for no fee for the little notice and the previous mix up. I'm so delighted and can't wait now.

Chocolate Biscuit Cake Recipe

This is my chocolate biscuit recipe that I have been using for years now. I played around with different flavours until I came up with this. All the biscuit cakes I have made over the last few years are this recipe. I have kept this one close and until now the only person I would share it with was my sister but I have decided  to share it on my blog as I like making these recipes and like to see when someone tries them out. 

This is a really easy recipe and only takes 15 to 20 minutes to make then just stick it in the fridge. I like to make it at night time then leave it overnight in the fridge as I hate waiting around hours for it to set. It's very chocolatey and not something you can eat very much of trust me it's very heavy and a little bit is all you need to feel stuffed. It's the cake I get asked to make the most so it must make an impression lol. 

I suggest you use 50% chocolate and noting lower if you want a strong chocolate flavour, milk chocolate is also fine but make sure you use good quality chocolate otherwise you might not get the results that you want. For something a little different you could also try this out with white chocolate. It's a little different to the biscuit cake we may be used to but it's always fun to try new thing out. 

Happy baking, 

Neads xx

Latest bakes

So recently Iv'e been doing a little bit of baking so I thought I would share what Iv'e made.

Pink and white girly cake

Here's the communion cake I made for a little girl called Natasha. She asked for a white and pink decorated 2 tier cake. The inside was chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge icing. The house also smelled like chocolate all day. 

Very chocolate cake

Another communion cake this time for a little boy called Josh. He asked for a very chocolatey cake. So here is what I made. It's chocolate sponge, dark chocolate fudge icing with milk chocolate fudge icing around the top. I was also asked to decorate it with gold letters and a butterfly. The little gold balls on the bottom are painted malteasers. 

Cookies

I seem to be making these cookies a lot recently. There chocolate chip and sprinkle vanilla cookies. There so easy to make and I made it even easier when I made up a big batch divided it up and froze them so all I had to do was defrost and bake. 

Recent Baking

At the start of the month was my youngest sisters 21st. I was in charge of the cake making. I knew I had to do something different for this one so I went with black icing and neon colours. The best part was the inside. I wanted it to look great when it was cut open. This is why I went with multicoloured cake and cut a hole in the middle and filled it with smarties. I also iced it in chocolate fudge before putting the sugarpaste on. The cake didn't last very long with everyone at the party, which I take as a complement. 

This is the second cake I made which was for my Aunty's 40th Birthday last weekend. I wanted to do something different but girly at the same time. I have been dying to give a sprinkles cake a go for so long. I was afraid that it might go all wrong but in the end it turned out great and I found it really fun to make. I did however get sprinkles everywhere in the kitchen including under the dryer and even found some in my hair later on lol. It seems to be like glitter it gets everywhere. I bought the big bag of sprinkles in Decobake on Bachelors Walk a couple of weeks ago thinking I would need it all but surprisingly I didn't actually need loads. I may have over estimated it aswell and bought a 1kg bag of sprinkles. I have since bought a jar to store them all in and I'm already working out ideas to use them up.

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Another week, another cake

After the last cake I made for a book club member I was asked to make a another. I got a phone call from the woman that asked for it and said that she loved the cake and so did her son. As he is making his Confirmation and liked the cake she asked if I could make one similar but in white and blue and instead of books on top could I put a dove on it. A dove is the sign for Confirmation.

The cake I made was chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge icing. I cover it in white and blue sugar paste. The decoration was white and blue beading, Confirmation day on the top and the name Alan in the center on the front. I also made a white sugar paste dove. I had not originally planned on doing this as I have a dove plunger but I couldn't find it so thought I'd give making one go.

So this is how it turned out and they where very happy with it as was I. I was so organised for this as I'm also studying for exams so had to be on top of everything but then just as I was about to decorate it I re tore the muscle in my calf so had to hobble around the kitchen for a few hours. I was exhausted the next morning. hopping around on one leg takes alot of effort. I also burnt my hand while melting the chocolate for the fudge icing. I'm a bit of a disaster if you haven't noticed but I do get the job done in the end. 

This weeks Baking

This week I was asked to make a cake for someones 50th birthday and of course I said yes. I love any excuse to make cakes. They asked for chocolate cake and as it was from the other members of her book club that it had books on it or something along those lines.

When I got home on Thursday and I got stated on making the cake and then icing and decorating. It worked out quite well that one of my favourite movies just happened to be on so ended up watching Saving Private Ryan and decorating a cake. I surprised it didn't turn out army themed.

I made a chocolate sponge and chocolate fudge icing, it smelled so good and the smell of chocolate kind of lingered in the house all evening. I used white sugar paste to cover and decorate it. I had never made sugar paste books before but it wasn't that hard to do.

I wanted to keep the colours bright so I went for pastel type colours in pink and yellow. I'm very happy about how it turned out.

TimTams sent from Australia

Nothing To make you feel better when you have the flu then getting chocolate in the post. I got this package the other day sent all the way from Australia. My Aunty posted it over full of TimTams. While my I was there last year with my sister we loved them so we where so excited to get is. Aslo there are alot of stamps on this 94 actually I got curious and counted.

The flavours are Original, Vanilla, Caramel and strawberry. The caramel are so good.