Wardrobe weekly

Left it a bit late again, but here is what I've been wearing in the build-up to my Christmas holidays!

Monday

 Sparkle for December!

 I've had this dress for ages, I forgot how much I like it! These are new wide-fit boots from Primark btw.

 Close up of the lovely sparkly floral lace.

Dress 24 - Lovedrobe via Evans

Leggings 20 - Primark

Boots - Primark

Tuesday

 God I adore this dress! It's so comfy, and flattering, and Christmassy and lush.

 Sexy ruched wrap detail that hides a turkey filled bulging tummy rather well!

 I wore this on Christmas day last year and I still love it. I'm extremely tempted to get the blue version for new year.... because blue velvet!

 Red dress red lips.

 I went for dinner with my 'wife' which is why I dressed all pretty! I have to take sneaky pictures of her because she is very private and doesn't want to be all over the tinternet. I'm allowed to put her up in silhouette though!

 We went to Covent garden because look.... Christmas joy!

 We ate at Wahaca (oh my god the plantain tacos - oh my god. Also, If you like bloody Mary's, their bloody Maria is a MUST!) but checked out all the lovely lights first!

 Charming!

 Lovely!

Dress 22 - Bonmarche

Leggings 20 - Very / South

Boots - New Look

Wednesday

 I adore this vintage dress. I got it last year on ebay and it's totally ace.

 It's stretch and super synthetic, so it's one to wear in the colder months.

 There are many things I love about this dress. For one thing it's some sort of odd party dress, but the high neck makes it a bit rock and roll!

 Also the v-shaped waist is awesome. Christmassy in shape!

The little squares are made from silver glitter!

 And last but not least it has a big old full skirt! I love this dress.

Dress 22 - Vintage via ebay

Leggings 20 & earrings - Primark

Boots - New Look

Thursday

 It was well cold on Thursday and I knew I needed to wrap up & wear wellies because me and the boyf were meeting friends at the Winter wonderland after work.

 I got this coat last year but it never got cold enough for me to actually wear it!

 I just cannot tell you how much I love it. It's so well structured, and comfy and warm.

 Oh and the rain just sits on top of the faux fur until you rub it off so I was dry as a bone underneath despite the inevitable downpour when we were in Hyde Park!

 Christmas joy!

 Singing along to some funky classics.

 Ummmm so many trees!

 Spinning round on a carousel whilst drinking... why?!

 Watching the mad people on the big drop ride thing. We drank too much. Mulled wine is dangerous!

Coat 24 - Bonmarche

Top 24 - Asos Curve

Jeggings 22 - Dorothy Perkins

Hat & boots - Primark

Friday

 Please excuse the fact that I still had my t-shirt tucked in to my skirt (stops it riding up underneath my coat!) and how rough I am. So tired and slightly hungover. This was a very BLURGH day!

 I got Sam this Christmas pudding t-shirt and she looks freaking awesome in it!

 I went full-on fancy dress and decided to do a north pole outfit.

 I don't care if I looked insane (imagine this with the coat and hat from the day before!), it made me feel better about my banging head and nauseous stomach!).

T-shirt, leggings & skirt 20 - Primark

Socks - gift from Sammykins!

Boots - Asos

Sunday

 The in-laws came to visit on Sunday, so I pulled out my new winter frock.

 This Queen of Holloway dress is so cute. This size 24 is actually quite tight on my bust so I think I'll let it out a bit with some fabric at the sides. It's great on my waist, but I always find high neck dresses like this to be super tight on the old boobies!

 I just couldn't resist this print, it's so cool!

Dress 24 - Queen of Holloway

Cardi 20 & tights XL - Primark
Boots - Simply Be

Knits

 I took a trip to primark to buy some little stocking fillers, and I came out £50 poorer! What I've realised is that most of my jumper nowadays are too short to wear with tight jeans. They're fine with skirts, but it's a bit nippy at the moment and I wanted some proper big warm jumpers that covered my belly. Primark has had tons of jumpers this season but whenever I've been in there recently everything has been pretty much cropped, so I was excited to find some proper winter jumpers this week! All three jumpers I bought are a size 20, but would EASILY fit bigger as they're designed to be generous.

 This first one is ACE! It's soft, thick and super comfy. £10 bargain! This came in a coral-like orange colour too, and I was sorely tempted to buy both, but you'll see later why I went for the blue!

 I love this even more after seeing these pictures, the knitted pattern is more obvious from far away!

 I'm wearing some new high-waisted jeans / trousers from Dorothy Perkins in size 22.

 I couldn't resist getting this excelent lime green jumper! It's pretty neon in real like - somewhere between lime and acid green! £14.

 This is a tighter knit than the blue one, and has a slightly rougher feel, which is to be expected with this style of jumper. It's still lovely and comfy (wore it all day yesterday!) and it's very very warm.

 This is a perfect jumper if it's cold inside, and it fits fine under my coats. Ace of base!

 This has a step hem, but it's not obvious so it doesn't bother me!

 These are my new coated jeans from Dorothy Perkins. A generous size 22, which is nice as I've never been able to get into a pair of coated jeans before!

 They kind of look like leather, but obviously are more comfy and less sweaty! These will be brilliant in the very cold and wet weather that will probably arrive in January, great in the snow too because the coating will keep them quite dry! The only downside is that when I walk the sound between my thighs make a sound like a steam train leaving the station! I decided that I didn't care because these were so surprisingly comfortable!

 So I had to have the neon orange version! (again, it's brighter in real life than the flash would suggest!).

 I decided to get this orange one rather than the orange version of my blue one because this style is a little smarter.

 Eating my cupcake decoration!

These are Topshop earrings designed by Central Saint Martins students, on sale for £8 here. I ordered the big dangly orange pair too (which are ace!) and the orange necklace to match. Very sadly the necklace arrived in shards so I have to return it. It was quite literally smashed to pieces! Terrible packaging - no padding or protection at all. It's miraculous that the earrings arrived in one piece!

I like it #1

I've been inspired by Becky's 'Photo Favourite Thursday' posts, so I've decided to do something similar! Just general things that I really like at the moment. Time for the first instalment of 'I like it'!

First up I rather like this picture of my Nephew sitting on my Mums head. 

 There always has to be music, and I could bore the shit out of you with every song I'm currently listening to on repeat, but I'll try to keep it to just a few! Now then, this is an old favourite newly discovered. Tom Wait's 'Dirt in the Ground' is a fantastic song in it's original form (on Bone Machine), but the live version with a new arrangement has him swapping out his high-pitched howling for a deep growl and it's just spine-chilling and beautiful.

I can't cope with small clutch bags (my wallet is basically a brick) but I so love New Looks little Christmas clutches!

I've already watched Elf twice. Best Christmas movie ever. If you haven't' seen it (like my lovely friend Sam) then WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Watch it immediately. 

 

I very much like Marisota's customer service this month - they went above and beyond to try and fix the almighty mess that Hermes created with my order!

 

I love SNL, Particularly Kenan Thomson (Ever since Kenan and Kel!) and this skit cracked me up so much I felt the need to share it!

 Serial is hands down the most gripping podcast that has ever been made. I like a good mystery (which is probably why I loved True Detective and the Returned) but I've never been as obsessed with anything as I have become with Serial - I've been reading all the transcripts and call records like some kind of crazed Sherlock wannabe! I guess the fact that it's real is what makes it so gripping. The series has just come to an end (BOO!) so you can go and binge-listen. My boyfriend thinks Adnan is guilty. I think he is innocent. It's a total mind-fuck. Genius podcasting!

 

I completely adore Elysium Black Muscat. A perfect desert wine with amazing berry flavours. I've love this for years but just discovered that I can buy it in Selfridges. So so good! 

I still love a bit of sing-songy boombastic bass heavy dance music, I'm old enough to remember when the Prodigy were the hot-new-sound after all! As much as I loved Alison Wonderland's single 'Cold' (which has a genius video by the way) I'm even more in love with this one. It does make me want to fist-punch and bounce around on the bed like she does in the video!

Majoramarina is my favourite person on Instagram. I love her outfits and her vintage stylings!

Jesus Christ, so this is how the other half live?! A colleague of mine was given some Harrods milk chocolate covered cocoa dusted almonds, which she offered around, and seriously, they're one of the most delicious things I've ever put in my mouth! I just can't explain why these are so very very good, but they are basically crack in chocolate-form!

Say what you will about Drake but he sure as hell wrote a smash when he wrote 'just hold on we're going home'. A good pop song is a good pop song! I love the orginal, but I'm obsessed with this version by ASTR!

I so love my friends Brooch! Squished face fox is made by her friend and you can buy them on etsy here.

There is much to love about 'A Curious Fancy', but I was particularly taken with this photograph. Totally joyous!

Chocolate tinged fruit cake

Ahhhhh Christmas, time for stuffing your face with whatever you can get your hands on. Personally the bit I like least is Christmas pudding and Christmas cake. I don't like tradition fruit cakes at all as a matter of fact, but for some reason this year I decided I wanted to try to make a Christmas cake. Mainly because I've never made one before and I like a challenge, but also because Miss Nigella Lawson inspired me with her chocolate fruit cake.

As nice as this all sounded there were a couple of problems. I don't like candied peel very much, but my boyfriend detests raisins, currents and anything coffee flavoured, so I decided to make a cake inspired by Nigella's rather than using her exact recipe! It still tastes like a fruit cake, but the nicest fruit cake I've ever eaten, so I thought I might as well share my recipe for any of those who are raisin-phobic!

Ingredients

350g Dried soft prunes

100g Dried Cranberries

200g Glace Cherries

200g Dates

50g Dried Apricots

175g Brown sugar

175g Runny Honey

175g unsalted butter

150g plain flour

75g ground almonds

1/2tsp baking powder

1/2tsp bicarb

1 & 1/2tsp mixed spice

5tbsp cocoa powder

3 eggs

125ml Cherry Brandy

50-100ml apple juice

3 Oranges (zest and juice)

Pinch of salt!

 My first suggestion is this - put on some Christmas tune and sing loudly while you make this cake. It makes it moister, honestly!

 Prunes are the backbone of this cake, so I kept the same measurements from the original recipe. I like prunes and this all worked out well as I have enough left to make devils on horseback to go with the Christmas dinner! I actually used the original 4 tablespoons of cocoa, but I think a bit more chocolate would improve the flavour so I've upped it to 5!

I would say that the fruits you use are pretty flexible so long as they're not fresh! I chose dates for texture, dried cranberries to replace the raisins, glace cherries because I love cherries and apricots because I had them in the house!

I use this sugar for pretty much everything and it worked great with this cake.

I would have liked to use proper cherry brandy, but I had liqueur so I used both that and a splash of regular brandy. I think you could use whatever you want really. Rum would be good. Orange liqueur would be delicious. Do whatever you fancy, and add as much or as little as you want!

 Chop the dates, prunes and cherries up. put them all in a big pan with the butter, honey, sugar, cocoa, spices, orange zest and juice, pich of salt and booze. mix them all up and cook them for around 10 minutes. 

Because I added dates to the ingredients my mix was very thick, so I added some apple juice to thin it out a bit. I added about 75ml but just do what suits you - the mixture should be thick and stodgy after 10 minutes, but still quite liquid! you could also just add more orange juice if you'd rather, or cranberry juice would be yummy..... I just happened to have some apple juice in the fridge!

 once the fruit mixture is done you need to cool it for about 30 minutes. this is the time to put the oven on to pre-heat - I have a mega hot oven so I went for around 130degC, but if yours is a regular oven then 150 is best. This is a 20cm cake tin, 3 inches high, and to allow for the cake to rise nice and high Nigella suggests using greaseproof paper high up the sides......

 To stop the cake rising and taking the paper with it, cut flaps into the paper and then lay it across the bottom like this......

Then add a circle on the top to hold the flaps down.

after the mixture has cooled a bit (so as not to cook the eggs when you mix everything up!) measure out your flour, raising agents and almonds. chuck this into the pan and then beat the eggs in the measuring bow, then add those to the pan too. Give it a good mix.... it takes some elbow grease but make sure everything is thoroughly mixed together! You should have a thick mixture now! scrape all the mixture into the cake tin ( leaving just enough for some bowl licking!) and put it in the oven for between 1 3/4 & 2 hours.

 When you take the cake out (I suggest trying it at 1 & 3-4 hours initially!) use a skewer to test the interior. The skewer should come out clean around the edges, but there should be a little bit of goo on the skewer in the very middle (it's a nice sticky cake!) but only a bit!

 Et voila! A not too Fruit cakey fruit cake!

There it is... a nice moist and sticky christmas cake! You could absolutely ice this, but I ilke the option to have it with creme fraiche, Chantilly cream or brandy butter!