My Week in Rambles 7th November 2016

'Catssssss ahhhhhhh Saviours of the Universe' 

Me, age 25 and three quarters

Oh hi there. Welcome to my new style of post, which everyone else does but I never have. How you doing? Well that's great, now let's talk about me. After all, that's what you came here for (spoiler: modesty ranges from high to low throughout). So I've decided to write a bit more on here, I realised the main things I like writing are the rambles at the end of my blog posts so I thought I'd go wild and dedicate a whole post to it but under the guise of telling you stuff about my week (so cunning).

Anyway on to the good stuff, which mostly involves brownies, cookies and the wedding of the year!

This last week has featured my second fave holiday, Halloween, which I can say in complete contrast to my usual over the top celebrating I pretty much ignored. Aside from obligatory pumpkin carving (mine was supposed to be day of the dead themed) and making spooky looking matcha and white chocolate cookies, I did nothing to celebrate Halloween. No spooky films, no trick or treating, and no costumes...except swimming costumes. Yep, that's how I spent my Halloween, swimming at the local pool with my manfriend, Dan, in separate lanes because we are super cool. The cookies were seriously good though, expect a recipe for them coming in the nearish future.

When I haven't been at work, I've mostly been trying to sort out stuff with the solicitors regarding when we're going to exchange. If you've been following me on Instagram you'll know that Dan and I recently had an offer accepted on a house, if you haven't been following on Instagram then surprise!! The house is outside of London, we're going to become proper country bumpkins and we can't wait. We're also starting to realise that things are a lot slower in the country...including, but not limited to, getting an exchange date. Our mortgage broker has told us we should be able to exchange and complete next month but we're not holding out for it. Although I can't wait to move in and do a house tour for you all (think peeling wallpaper and a black bathroom suite...)!

Second to the stress of buying a house, I mentioned in my last post (literally right at the end), that one of my friends has been very ill. The great news is that after weeks of being unable to be moved she's finally back in the UK and is making amazing progress. Now she's back in the UK, I've spent this week trying to plan when our other two close friends and I can go and visit her. So we'll be making a road trip up North next weekend to see her and catch up, while also going off route to meet my friend's parents. It was actually her birthday while she was really ill and we haven't been able to celebrate it, hopefully we'll be able to sneak some cake and party bits into the hospital so she can have a birthday afternoon tea.

Which leads me nicely on to cake. On Thursday, Sophie (of Sophie Loves Food) and I took the day off work and got together to bake the best wedding cake in the history of wedding cakes for our lovely friends Persephone (of Persephone H) and James. Ok, P knew our strengths and weaknesses, so she convinced James to let us make brownies instead of a wedding cake. But if I told you me and Soph just made brownies it doesn't sound as impressive as a wedding cake now does it? Honestly I don't think I'll be able to face making or eating brownies again for a long time but it was worth it. P and James were thrilled, and we got lots of compliments from the other wedding guests. From stressing that it was going to look terrible and nowhere near wedding worthy, it actually look s pretty professional by the end. Also the brownies were incredibly gooey but then that's what over 30 eggs and 2.5kg chocolate does to a brownie. Sophie found the dark chocolate online through Amazon for 2.5kg it cost £22.70 (see here), if anyone is looking for an industrial amount of chocolate I would 100% recommend this brand, Callebaut. It comes in chips which is super easy to bake with and means you don't need to chop it up to put in the brownie mix. I've put the recipe below for 20 brownies which we multiplied up to make 105 brownies. 

Best Ever Wedding Brownies 

(makes around 20 squares)

6 eggs

550g caster sugar

600g dark chocolate (80%)

350g plain flour

350g salted butter 

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line the bottom of a large rectangular baking tray. Crack the 6 eggs into a clean bowl and whisk in the caster sugar till it's frothy and white. The whiter it is, the more likely you'll get that crunchy meringue top that we all love on top of a brownie. 

Step 2. In a pan on the hob, melt together 400g of the chocolate and all of the butter, stirring constantly to avoid the chocolate seizing. 

Step 3. Once the chocolate and butter has melted, whisk your frothy egg/sugar mix once more so it's all white and frothy again, then slowly pour in the chocolate butter whisking as you go. Once the chocolate butter is all incorporated, add in the remaining 200g chocolate (either chopped into small chunks or as chips) and the plain flour, and stir to combine with a spatula. 

Step 4. Pour the mix into the lined baking tray till it's about an inch in height. Bake the mix in the oven for 20 minutes. Once baked leave to cool a little, then chuck it in the fridge for a couple of hours (this makes it much easier to slice and super fudgy). Once completely cool, slice the brownies into sensible or unsensible sized squares for your eating pleasure. To get the edges really neat after we sliced them, Sophie and I pushed the sides of the brownies up against a large knife...brownie perfection. 

Brownies made, Sophie and I met up on Saturday morning to assemble the brownies before the wedding at P and James's reception venue. We kept it classic, making a large pile of brownies and adding some red roses and white baby's breath, and lots and lots of icing sugar, which were the colours of the wedding. P's brother, Rory, arrived, mistaking us for bar staff while the actual staff were eating Chinese food, he left us with the task of setting up the beautiful cake P's Auntie had made for them to cut. I have never been more nervous in my life, trying to put that cake on the stand. I am genuinely proud I didn't drop it. 

Following that, Sophie and I pegged it to Islington, grabbed a sandwich because by this time we were starving (by this time we were a couple of hangry bloggers) before running to Islington Town Hall for the ceremony. What can I say about the ceremony, I cried, Soph cried, the lady sitting next to me cried, so did P. It was lovely, and P looked absolutely stunning in her sequin J Crew number. Post ceremony, we all jumped on the wedding bus to take us to the reception. I've never been to a wedding in a pub before but it was absolutely perfect. The vibe was so P and James, the food great and the music was on point (P and James got every guest to add a song to their wedding playlist in advance). It was one of the most relaxed weddings I've ever been to and we couldn't be happier for them. I have to be honest by the time Dan and Sophie's boyfriend, Matt, arrived in the evening I was quite merry...which only increased with the dancing to follow. If you saw Sophie's insta story that day you may have seen a series of drunken singing videos of the six of us (mostly me, Dan and James). Our version of Parklife will go down in history...as being awful but hey we had a great time! 

Sunday was not a fun day, contrary to the trending Instagram hashtag. I was more than hungover, I'm pretty sure I died and was reborn as some pitiful creature (similar to a Phoenix). It wasn't pretty, I wasn't pretty but there you are, life isn't always pretty. I spent my Sunday asleep, lying on the sofa wrapped in a duvet with my fellow hungover Dan and watching multiple Harry Potter movies. 

So that was my week. How was yours? I should add I was so drunk on Saturday when a fellow wedding guest asked Dan and I as we were leaving where we going and did we want to come out with everyone after the reception, I told him no, he could not come home with us...so sorry fellow wedding guest, I don't even remember what you look like but I am sure the situation was awkwardly misread. Even in a full post about me I can't stop rambling. We need to sort this out. Don't worry I'll get the balance right next time. Have a great week!!