Victoria Sponge Cupcake

Forgot to add this to my main recipe post, but this is the cupcakes cut in half - I just love how gorgeous the jam looks tucked inside the fluffy sponge cake!

Recipe: Classic Victoria Sponge Cake & Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

I think that the Victoria sponge cake was the very first thing I ever learned to bake as a child and baking it now always reminds me of weekend afternoons spent meticulously weighing and measuring ingredients and then taking the mixing bowl to my Dad to get his help with beating the butter and sugar together.
Then I would wait (impatiently!) for the cake to cool before slathering it with jam and making a soft, fluffy buttercream filling.
There were a lot of times when I just couldn’t wait any longer and the filling would go inside a still slightly warm cake which, of course, melted the buttercream and more often than not would cause the top half of the cake to slowly slide off the bottom half so I had to push it back on and squish it down gently to stop it happening again.

Today, instead of making an entire round cake, I doubled the mixture and made Victoria sponge cupcakes.
Once they were cooled, I hollowed out a small well in the middle of each cupcake, filled that with strawberry jam and then topped it all off by piping vanilla buttercream frosting over the top of the jam filled wells.

Recipe: Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a chocolate freak.
Seriously.
I’ve tried giving it up and all that does is make me cranky. So naturally I needed a really good chocolate cupcake recipe.
I think this one has it all – it’s chocolaty but not overly sweet, it’s squidgy but not too doughy and the addition of the roughly chopped hazelnuts gives the whole cake a lovely bite and texture.
When I made these I experimented with a coffee frosting that went really well with the rich chocolate flavor of the cupcakes. Unfortunately because it was an experiment I don’t have a recipe for the frosting, but next time I make these I will make sure to write down how I make it.
But just look at them…I had to draw on deep reserves of willpower to not eat the lot in one sitting.

Element Inspired Birds Nest Pendants

Element Inspired Birds Nest Pendants.
Glass pearl beads wrapped in silver wire with an antique silver feather charm and antique silver chain.
Main picture L-R: Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
EARTH: dark green, dark brown and light brown beads.
AIR: Golden yellow, pale yellow and white beads.
FIRE: Dark red, bright red and orange beads.
WATER: Cobalt blue, pale blue and sky blue beads.

Ninja Alert!

I'm feeling a bit accomplished today as I've managed to make four Element Inspired Birds Nest pendants, which I'll be posting soon.

I set out thinking that I'd get one done and see how I felt from there and then suddenly four of them appeared out of nowhere, so I'm feeling a bit like a craft ninja...

I really love this picture and had to share it with all the other Craft Ninjas' out there!!
I will be putting together the post for the chocolate cupcakes later today, too.

Vesta xox

Crafting: Hamsa Charm Bracelet

So yesterday evening I was fully prepared to write up a new blog post about chocolate hazelnut cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting until an idea popped into my head and, of course, once it was in there it steadfastly refused to get out until I started putting this bracelet together.


So rather than said cupcakes, today I will be sharing the fruits of my creative labor.
My brain and I need to have words.

In case anyone is wondering, the Hamsa is an amulet or talisman that is used as a symbol for protection; more commonly protection against the Evil Eye. It is also known as the Hand of Miriam or the Hand of Fatima.
As I was finished the chain to make the bracelet, I decided to use two silver bell charms – bells have long been used to clear the energy of an area and to purify it which I thought tied in nicely with the Hamsa and the blue eye beads; which are also used as protection against the Evil Eye.

Recipe: Red Berry & White Chocolate Blondies

Until this month I had never made blondies. Actually, until this month I didn’t really even know what blondies were.
I know, I know.
The recipe I’m sharing today was given to me by a friend, hastily scribbled on a piece of paper and accompanied with the words “I don’t know if that’s actually correct but it looks about right…just have a mess about with it!”
So mess about I did, adding a little extra here and taking out a little there until I was happy with the result – a deliciously sweet, cakey and slightly chewy treat full of white chocolate chunks and juicy red berries that give a lovely tart bite to the whole thing.


I picked this up on a whim when I was grocery shopping, not really sure what I was going to use it for. I’m not ashamed to say that the entire tub went into my blondies. If you can find this or something like it then grab it while you can because these tubs make great ingredients for cakes, cookies and bars.