Thursday 23 October 2014

Devilishly Destructive Delights Bakes: Townie

Now you are probably reading this blog title and wondering what on earth I'm going on about. A Townie? What's a Townie? 

Well a week ago I didn't know either! I was riffling through my recipe box that is full of torn out magazine articles when I stumbled upon this recipe. It was one I had pulled out in last months issue of Asda Magazine which I have previously reviewed here. I pulled the recipe out of the box and was immediately struck by how delicious it looked. I do love a good picture on a recipe and often find I can't fully trust one without an image. I wrote down the list of ingredients I needed (which admittedly was very little thanks to my trusty baking cupboard) and kept the little article to one side. 

I finally made this delicious creation on Sunday and I am so glad I did. In fact I was so happy with it and had so much interest on my Instagram that I just had to share it!

So what is a Townie? Well it is a combination of a tart and a brownie in one delicious pudding and here is how you too can make it...

Ingredients:
- A sweet pastry case (or if you are super at making pastry you can make your own from scratch)

For the treacle base:
- 1 egg
- 50g brown sugar
- 75g golden syrup
- 15g melted butter
- 100g roughly chopped walnuts or pecans.

For the brownie topping:
- 175g milk chocolate
- 85g butter
- 50g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 50g plain flour
- Icing sugar (to decorate)

1. To start you need to make the treacle base for the case. Lightly beat your egg with a fork and then add the brown sugar, golden syrup and melted butter, beating together until just combined.
2. Spread this mixture over your pastry base.
3. On the top of this mixture sprinkle over your roughly chopped nuts.
4. Place in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes although if it is still as wobbly as my mixture was cook it for a bit longer. I allowed mine to cool on the side before letting it chill in the fridge to set.
5. Next you need to make the brownie topping. For this you will need to melt the chocolate and butter together.
6. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until they are foamy.
7. Stir in the melted chocolate to your other mixture along with the flour and mix together until you form a smooth brownie mix.
8. Allow the brownie mix to cool before spreading over your treacle base.
9. Bake your Townie in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until it is firm on the outside and gooey on the inside, as brownies should be.
10. Decorate the top with icing sugar.



And there you have it. Your very own Townie, which might I add is great served with some cream! 

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Devilishly Destructive Delights Visits: Stanborough Park

As I have previously mentioned on this blog I am an Autumn lover. Everything about this time of year makes me excited. The dark mornings, the jumpers, the crunchy leaves, the golden trees and everything else in between. I like nothing better than to put on a warm coat, a pair of boots and go for a walk, hand in hand with Richard, maybe kicking my way through some crisp leaves if he lets me. 

So whilst we were out in Watford on Saturday we researched areas of interest nearby and came across Stanborough Park on TripAdvisor and instantly fell in love after seeing this gorgeous picture...


So we typed in the postcode on our trusty sat nav and made our way to the park. It was relatively quiet on a Saturday afternoon and the weather was just right- not too cold, not too windy and certainly not raining which was a bonus! We parked the car and started to explore the various footpaths and bridges in the area. There was certainly lots of wildlife to see including some gorgeous young swans, one of which was particularly photogenic. 


At busier and warmer times of year there are certainly lots of things to keep visitors busy including a playground, climbing apparatus and boating. On this day however it was quiet and slightly eery. 

  

We made our way around the park, snapping lots of pictures along the way, taking in all of the beauty that Autumn has to offer.





Stanborough Park and the surrounding town were simply gorgeous and it is certainly a place I would love to visit again. I imagine it looks magical at any time of year and must be popular among families and dog walkers. I would definitely recommend taking a trip and maybe even stopping off at the local Beefeater for a spot of lunch.

I have very little else to say, in fact I think these final two pictures speak for themselves...


 

Devilishly Destructive Delights Visits: Intu Shopping Centre, Watford

You know how it is, sometimes you get a bit bored of visiting the same old places with the same old shops and the same old cafés. Everyone reaches that point where they just want change and that hit Richard and I on Saturday. I was fed up of Luton and Milton Keynes and we both agreed it would be great to try somewhere new. So we put our heads together and came up with Watford and I am so glad we did. 

We were out of the house bright and early on Saturday morning armed with some CDs for the car and our trusty phones for sat navs. We are fortunate because Watford is actually only a twenty five minute drive from us and it's an easy journey on the motorway. Within no time at all we were there and after making our way round and round the confusing (not to mention packed) multi storey we parked and made our way to the Intu Shopping Centre. 







It has an array of stores including our favourites like H&M and Primark. Although we have a lot of these stores at our local shopping centre I find that a lot of the stock stays the same for weeks on end and sometimes there are better products elsewhere. We looked around the shopping centre for quite a while before heading out onto the high street. Of course all this driving and walking around made us thirsty, not to mention quite hot so we stopped off at Starbucks for our favourite Caramel Frappaccino which was very refreshing.







The high street too had lots of different shops, many of which continued down from the Shopping Centre. It was also full of people handing out leaflets for upcoming events and had several musicians performing. We found ourselves in a Greggs which is more often than not where we get our lunch whilst out shopping and sat in the St Mary's Church gardens which was the perfect place to stop and eat. 







Overall we had a fairly successful day out at the Intu Shopping Centre and although we didn't come home laden with bags we did have a fun day out and left with items we would not have found at our local centre. Would I recommend it? Would I go back? I most certainly would.

Check out the Intu Shopping Centre here.


Wednesday 15 October 2014

Our New Project

So the blog has been fairly quiet in the most recent weeks simply because Richard and I have a new project on our hands- our new house. I mentioned in my previous post that we had found a new home and that I would update shortly when everything had settled and after being here three weeks I can finally say that things are almost finished. 

We have actually had a couple of guests over recently, so while the house was tidy I thought I would take some snaps of the house and make a blog post all about what lies behind the door. A sort of guided tour if you will. So here is our new home... 





The first room is our rather small but perfectly formed kitchen. I would say this was my biggest (if not only) compromise with this house. I love cooking and to me the kitchen will always be an important space. I initially doubted the kitchen based on its size but actually it is a really functional space that I now love. It is basically a box room but it has great cupboard space and plenty of room for all my nik naks. 

I think my favourite part of the kitchen has to be these shelves which hold my previously hidden jars. I made these labels and had these at the old house but they were always tucked away in the cupboard so I love having them presented.  It's also a great way to see at a glance what I am getting low on. 

The kitchen did need a jolly good clean. I actually spent two and a half hours in there, scrubbing and organising cupboards. Let's put it this way, four years worth of grease and crumbs are hard to shift. We still need to paint the wall above the oven which has lots of greasy marks but luckily the estate agents reimbursed us for the paint we bought which is really handy. We are going to paint that wall red to match with our canisters and the other walls an off white colour. I can't wait for it to be finished.



We also have the added bonus of having a downstairs toilet which was a nice surprise on our viewing. Just before we left I noticed the door in the halfway and assumed it was a store cupboard but when they opened the door it was said to be a cloakroom. At the time it was full of boxes for the tenants move so we never got to see it so I was very keen to see what it was like on moving day. It is such a handy thing to have especially when you have guests over.









Next we have the best space in the house- the front room. This to us is a really important space and where we spend the majority of our time so we spent a while getting this right. We have taken a lot of things from our previous home, in fact the IKEA TV unit was the only thing we actually bought for the front room. We were given the coffee table from the school I work at after it was decided it was just too big for the classroom, we were also given the rocking chair by Richards Step Mum and the drawers were from our old bedroom. The sofa is also from our old home until we have enough money to buy ourselves a new one. Although some may say it looks slightly studenty at the minute, to us it is perfect. It's nice to look around and know that we are slowly working towards replacing these pieces for our own things. The TV unit was a great buy and holds so much, in fact we are going to get another unit just like the left hand side of it to hold even more of our belongings. The boxes too are great at hiding all of the odds and ends you don't want out and I love that we can display some of our possessions on the shelves. 

I made a feature out of our old coffee table and the same sort of thing has happened with our new one too. I like to put lots of pictures and items we have collected on there as well as a few candles and of course the biscuit tin for late night munchies. 

I love this space under the stairs which is now Murphy's own personal little snug. It has all of his toys there, food and his bed tucked out of the way. He loves having a snooze here in the evenings when Richard and I are curled up together on the sofa. I think it is really important for him to have his own place and for him to understand that distance from us is not necessarily a bad thing.



In the corner of the room we have this great space for our new dining table which was an absolute steal off of eBay. I was shocked at how expensive even a basic table could be and found this gem online. I bid on it but was outbid in the last second and was gutted. Luckily for me the seller got back in contact and offered it to me again after the winner failed to pay. I immediately said yes and it was dismantled and delivered to us in a matter of days. This was a bargain at just £50 for the lot after he had previously paid £500 at DFS. The chairs are very comfortable and the table actually has a shelf under the glass top which is currently displaying Richards Star Wars Lego models.



We are also fortunate enough to have a garden which Murphy loves. We viewed quite a lot of properties that didn't have a garden but we soon realised it was essential when we had a dog and were also persuaded by those without one that we would miss it too much. Although it doesn't look like much at the moment it is my hope that in the Spring we will be able to get out there and start digging. I'd really like to start growing some fruit and vegetables, nothing too difficult but something for me to get green fingered over. We have a great bit of storage at the bottom of the garden in the form of the brick outhouse and we are currently storing Richards bikes there along with big boxes that need to be ripped and recycled. 



That then takes us upstairs to what I call the 'sauna' thanks to all of the wood panelling around the room. I wish we could just rip it down or at least paint it but that's the thing with renting- you have limited control over elements of the house. We have however made it as nice as we can, using bright teal and aqua tones to lighten it up. It is actually a great size and also has the added bonus of having a storage cupboard for all of our towels and washing basket which frees up room in the airing cupboard. 



Then there is our bedroom which has loads of built in storage which is great. We had this at the last property and I think we would be lost without it to be honest. Our king size bed fits in here really well and the room is lovely and bright. The laminate flooring makes it easy to clean up the inevitable hair but is quite chilly in the mornings so I want to invest in a nice rug. I also want to paint the wall above the headboard and make it a feature, which we will probably do after the kitchen has been painted. The room is at the back of the house which makes it lovely and quiet as well as private which is a big bonus. 



We are also fortunate to have a spare bedroom which is currently housing all of the odds and ends we don't want in the loft but don't want anywhere else. Soon it will be an extra room to chill out in. It has our desk in so I can do my scrap booking and Richard can do his drawing. We also have an armchair in here and a TV so when it is a bit tidier it will be a nice chill out room for me when Richard has his mates over. It also houses our laundry which means it is no longer in the way and dries so much faster than at the old house.

So there's our new home summed up. We will of course slowly go through each room and decorate it to our own taste and in a far less messy manner than the previous tenants, who managed to drop paint everywhere. As soon as we progress I will be sure to put up more pictures but for now, watch this space.