After coming home from a full day out at work babysitting (It was SO strenuous!!), I find the amazing Jennifer dutifully icing the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes that I was supposed to help her make (but didn't have time to).
We had planned to do it together, but when you are a student plans are always changing, so you learn to accommodate and adapt. (I sound like a military personnel: Accomodate and adapt)
I met Jennifer last year at a Christian Union bible study, and ever since then we have been great friends. Since Jennifer lives in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and I live in Helsinki, Finland, we had to sent letters back and forth continents throughout the summer holidays. Subsequently, we now have a compilation of pages for a to-be journal.
And so, as you can probably tell, it was awesome to discover that Jennifer, surprise surprise, was in my flat this year at university!! (It wasn't much of a surprise, since we requested to be placed together) ;)
Jennifer and I both share a love of baking, and so when we went to a talk at a local church with the youngest "British Bake Off" contestant, Martha Collison, we were inspired to start baking. At this event I got a copy of Martha's new cookbook called "Twist", and the idea for this blog emerged!! I had the idea to bake all the recipes in Martha's cookbook in a whole year (120 recipes - 52 weeks baking 2-3 recipes), and in the process fundraise for the Tearfund charity (Christians passionate about ending poverty). When Jennifer told me that she was all for this idea, we began buying all the equipment and ingredients we would need to get started!!
This first week we decided to make the first two cupcakes in Martha's book: My Favourite Vanilla Cupcakes, and Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes.
 |
| Jennifer icing the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes |
I have to admit, I had to taste the icing, cause it looked SO GOOD!! It was such an amazing combination of cheesecakey goodness, as it had double cream, cream cheese and icing sugar in it :)
 |
| Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes |
After icing all the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes, and realising that we had heaps of extra icing, we decided to ice the Vanilla Cupcakes. I mean, why would you waste such amazingly, delicious icing?
 |
| Jennifer icing the Vanilla Cupcakes with the Lemon Cheesecake icing, turning them into gorgeous Butterfly Cupcakes |
Butterfly Cupcakes are where the top layer of the cupcake is sliced off, the icing is placed on, the layer of cupcake is cut in half and is then placed on the cupcake with the cut part in the icing. Walaa, it looks like a butterfly :)
Once Jennifer had finished icing the cake, we gave the role of cleaning the bowl to Sophie. She says that that is her contribution to baking :)
 |
| Sophie laughing at the awesomeness of her job in the kitchen. |
I can kind hear an evil laugh in my mind now, mwahahaha.
Sophie is a newly made friend who was placed in the same flat as me. She is awesome, and sweet, and great at pulling jokes that I don't understand. Literally. Sophie is from Kilmarnock (I had to google it to find how to spell it), which is near Glasgow city. And anyone who has ever heard Glaswegian accents would know that Scotts from near Glasgow have practically incomprehensible accents. ... And I thought the Irish accent was hard in my flat last year ...
Sophie and Jennifer can happily have an incomprehensible discussion about local television shows (at least I think that is what they talk about) at any given time. This is what makes Sophie such an awesome member of the Baking Students challenge.
 |
| The team!! |
Meet the team. From right: me, Jennifer, Sophie and Pamela. My role is to blog, bake and eat; Jennifer's role is to bake and eat; Sophie's role is to "clean" and eat; and Pamela's role is to bake, observe and eat.
In this picture Pamela made her first vegan brownies!! They tasted quite good, a tad bit oily, but quite amazing for vegan baking. At least she now knows how to improve next time :)
And the final member of the Baking Students challenge is Pamela.
Pamela is an awesome and fun friend who I found out was in the same flat as me at university. She has such a fun-loving, go-getter attitude, that she occasionally plans on going for trips that she cannot currently afford. Like she is now: a trip to Thailand in May. Nevertheless, she is on it: fundraising, getting a job and recruiting more students who can decide to go to Thailand with her.
Pamela is almost vegan, almost gluten-free, and almost dairy free. This makes it difficult to cook for her, so we will try to make the baking that we do in the future more accommodating for her ;)
Pamela is an invaluable member of the Baking Students challenge, if not just for her amazing talent for singing high notes and concentrating on studying while bopping Beyonce music is playing loudly, she is willing to learn more baking skills. I secretly think that anyone can bake, they just need to have confidence in themselves and follow the recipe (adding the allotted sugar is a must) ;)
 |
| The final product!! I present to you Jennifer's wonderfully made Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes!! |
While waiting for the cupcakes we did a little shuffle dance along the kitchen floor to some songs. Wednesdays on university campus is the party evening of the week, so we were having our own little baking party in our flat. I am now shuffle dancing with my head ;) (I feel like an Indian; bopping my head about like this;))
We are all looking forward to the bake next week, and especially (as we are all students here) eating the cupcakes!!
Till next week,
The Baking Students xx
No comments:
Post a Comment