How to: Milk Buns

This week's 'how to' is slightly different as we're going down the baking route, yay food! This last weekend me and my dad decided to have a go at making a Tom Kerridge recipe from his Best Ever Dishes book. Although I helped with most of the elements I was put in charge of the bread. We don't normally make bread but it was part of the recipe and I wanted to go for the full effect instead of just buying some bread buns for the supermarket. It was quite a bit of work but so so so worth it! They're sweet but not overwhelming and super duper soft. I've never been so impressed with myself. it's definitely made it to my list of things I'm proud of (which includes the speed I watched PLL in so not a hard list to join). So without further ado, here is the recipe, which things that I discovered while making it thrown in along the way.

Ingredients//

• 600g plain flour (little extra for dusting)
• 15g fresh yeast (go to the bread counter at a supermarket and they'll have some, we tried Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda and the latter gave us plenty for free)
• 20g salt
• 40g caster sugar
• 375ml milk (I went for whole for ultimate creaminess)
• 30g butter
• Vegetable oil (for greasing the tray)
• 1 beaten egg (for egg wash)
• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt (I just used normal salt and it was fine)

Baking//

Place the flour, yeast, salt and sugar into a bowl, making sure that the salt and the yeast are on separate sides on the bowl not touching. Warm the milk and butter in a pan on a low heat, just enough so that the butter just melts. Add the warm mixture to the dry mixture, I did it a little at a time, and bring it together, I used a fork. Once it comes together knead for 5-8 minutes until the dough is shiny. This is where I'd say it takes a lot longer. When the dough first comes together it is very sticky and takes around 15 minutes to get it to the point where you can properly knead it. When you think it's done do it for a bit longer and just persevere because it will be worth it in the end. Then place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with cling film and put in a warm place until it has doubled in size. My house was very cold on that day and because our microwave is above our oven I put it in there because it was pretty warm but by a radiator would be great. It should take about an hour.

Once it has doubled in size knock the air out and knead it again, I did it for about ten minutes. Lightly dust a surface with flour and begin to tear off pieces of dough and roll them into balls. The recipe (which makes 12 rolls) says they should each weigh around 80g however I found that it was more like 90g each. Grease a baking sheet with the oil and place the rolls on a sheet, slightly spaced apart. Leave them to prove on the tray for about an hour, until the rolls nudge into each other slightly. I put mine somewhere out of the sun in case they proved to quickly but I'd recommend putting them in a very warm place.

Once proved, preheat the oven to 220C and brush the top of the rolls with the egg to make them nice and shiny, it definitely makes all the difference. Sprinkle the tops with sesame seeds and salt before baking for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Finally cool on a wire rack.

I'm definitely going to making these again. Although with the proving time it takes quite a while but it is worth it. I love them so much and it's made me want to venture out more into the world of bread.

New Years Resolutions

I've never really been one to make New Years Resolutions until recently because I never had the drive to carry them through. To be honest I still don't have the drive but I'm determined to carry it through! Last year I said that I was going to be more organised and even bought myself a diary, but as per it didn't last very long. THIS year I'm doing a slightly different resolution. For christmas I got two cooking books and my plan is to cook most of the recipes from each. Who knows, I might be on the next series of bake off (or not but a girl can dream). So watch this space because this year I might actually come through on a resolution!

Happy New Year!

Road to University! Week NineFollow my blog with Bloglovin

Too cool for school...yeaa,
maybe not.

Well hasn't the weather suddenly taken a turn for the worst. It's so depressing! It also doesn't help that I have two coats, neither of which protects from the rain. The one I'm wearing at the minute, which is the thinner of the two, doesn't have a hood but my other coat isn't helpful as, 1. Isn't waterproof and 2. Should only be worn in arctic conditions. So I'm turning up to most of my lectures looking like a drowned rat. What a great way to make friends.

Sorry about not posting last week but I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't be bothered. It was a mixture of a pile of work and listening to Connor Maynard's 'RU Crazy' on repeat...don't judge.

I thought, seeing as though the weeks are becoming repetitive and I'm in the same routine I would write about something else so you (and I) don't get bored. So, this week it's all about FOOD! I mean I can't go wrong because who doesn't like food!

Here's a run down of the meals I've had this week:

 Tuesday- Chicken and ham pancakes
Made by my mum and dad and stored in my freezer this is one of the best meals in the world! A pancake day pancake stuffed with chicken and ham in a mushroom sauce covered in cheese and cooked until crispy. Just nom.

 Wednesday- Toad in the hole
This has become my wednesday staple as ever since I've been here I've had it every wednesday. How can you go wrong with a fried onion yorkshire pudding and sausage!?! The only problem is that it takes me about an hour to make as I work at the speed of a snail and I just get too excited!

 Thursday- Sausages and gravy with cheese and herb scones
Yes, this is a bit of a weird combination but (insert foodgasm noise here). It's all so good! Whats even better is that it didn't take me that long to make and it was just so delicious!

 Friday- Garlic pizza toast (and a sneaky bacon sandwich!)
So easy to make and sometimes i just have a craving for it. Probably takes 10 minutes to make overall and is a quick substitute for actual pizza. As for the bacon sandwich, the bacon was cooking and it was a moment of weakness!

Saturday- Stuffed chicken wrapped in shortcrust pastry
This has to be one of the proudest moments of my ENTIRE life! I made everything, the pastry, the stuffing I even butterflied the chicken to get the stuffing inside. It tasted so good! So proud.

Hope you enjoyed this little look at my diet, not the best but as long as it tastes good I don't really care! Hope there's a lot of food envy and see you next week!

Road to University! Week Seven

Hola again! As if it's week seven! Time seems to be flying by but I don't seem to have done anything at all! Hopefully, since my course starts this week, I'll be given some work to do so I can do something other than have the urge to bake. 

So, today (Tuesday) I didn't have any lectures, or seminars or anything on at all so i took a walk into the centre of Nottingham, which basically means that I walked 2 minutes down the road to buy some mushrooms from Tesco and try not to buy excessive amounts of things I don't need in River Island. 

Oh, and Jameela Jamil
came to Oceana...
no big deal.

Today's day off, however, was a well deserved day of rest from yesterdays full on day! We were all sent out into the centre of Nottingham to ask random passers by what their opinions were on the George Osborne's new 'work in benefits' scheme. After about an hour things were going well, me and my partner Demi were halfway through the amount of people that we needed and we were feeling pretty good. Then, we were interviewing an 81 year old woman and about halfway through a man came up to us and started telling us how he hated journalists and that we were the 'scum of the Earth', etc. Demi continued to talk to the woman whilst the man was explaining to me how he had just been let out of prison...today. Yeah, this was when i started to get concerned. so after about a 10 minute rant he told me to follow him over to a bench, which I did because I was so creeped out, where he pulled out a chalk drawings. the first one he pulled out was of a dog and he said 'This is you, the journalist. A dog that just snaps at peoples heels trying to get the story, just talking rubbish...' cue him showing a picture of a rubbish bin. This was when things started getting too strange so we left him to it and went and hid in Primark.

I think that the moral of this story is don't talk to ex-convicts...yes it's that simple. See you next week where there may be more university related stories! 

Road to University! Week Three

Happy Tuesday! Two weeks to go, AH! I think it's starting to sink in now that I'll be leaving my lovely purple bedroom behind to move to a blinding lime green one (the blindness is completely self inflicted!). Over the past few weeks I've been  slowly preparing myself with the skills I'll need whilst I'm at university. I already feel like a domestic goddess, sat here with my cappuccino after cleaning the bathroom, with a load of washing in the machine. 

This week the burning question has been 'What am I actually going to eat!?'. I really like to cook and bake anyway (just remembered bake off is on tonight, excited!) but whenever I cook a meal there's always someone there to help me with measurements and whether it looks right. So I've decided to take the plunge and just go for it! If it turns out wrong then I'll just try again! 

These are Rosemary and cheese scones which I made to go with a beef and ale stew my parents made. They are so yum and are a recipe from Paul Hollywood's bread. I've made them with help before but this was my first time completely unassisted. They were really easy to make and probably took me 45 minutes all together including cooking time. I think that the instructions are full proof and are really nice warm and I think could be really nice with soup. I also had them cold for my lunch the next day with butter on and they were delicious! I think they'd be a really good thing to make in bulk and take on the go or when I can't be bothered to make something.

These lilac little things are earl grey cupcakes. The recipe is once that I found on the internet from the Hummingbird Bakery. Normally I enjoy making cupcakes but this recipe was really strange and the cakes came out really dense. But the icing was really nice and earl grey-ey so next time I think I might make a normal cake but with this icing. But to say they took me about 2 hours to make they turned out okay...? I think I might just make some normal chocolate ones tomorrow to build up my baking self esteem. Is that normal?

This bowl of what looks like vomit is actually what I had for my lunch today, so don't judge. It's pasta with a tomato sauce. I've been practising making sauces loads this week because when I'm at uni that's probably what I'm going to be eating all of the time! I think I've got the hang of making pasta which is good because there was a point where I was eating raw pasta.

So I think that I had a pretty productive week this week! It was really yummy as well! I also found out that I can take my coffee machine with me, yey! So happy, I don't think I could actually live without it! So I'll leave you with a picture of my baby and I'll see you next week!

Road to University! Week Two

Another week of preparing for university has passed and I can happily say that it's been very productive! My little collection of spoons and tissues has exploded with things I didn't even know existed never mind that I needed. It's really exciting, but it's at the point now where I can barely walk to my wardrobe, and I need to get dressed! Also I've still got a ton more stuff to buy!

So since this week has been mostly about collecting the essentials (and some not so essentials!) I thought I'd share some of the important items and what they're for to help some of you who are going to university or even just moving into a place of your own if you didn't really know what you needed to buy. I'll warn you now...it's very green.

This is probably the best example to me not having a clue to the type of things I need. My auntie bought me this in a 'university bundle' after passing my exams (it's great cause everything is green!). This is a floor and surface cleaner that is in a gel like form. Is it bad that I didn't think I'd have to clean floors...and/or surfaces...don't judge me. It's in a handy size and smells quite nice for a floor cleaner so this might make cleaning fun (heres hoping!). Also I know it's going to work well as I know that Flash are a good floor cleaning brand so my new floors and surfaces will be getting quality!


These products are also things that I know we have in my house but I didn't even think I would need it! The products on the left are J-cloths, but much nicer as they match my green theme instead of being blue and stripy. I know, I have a problem. Thinking about it now, I actually use these to wipe up crumbs and stains a lot so I'd be pretty lost without these. On the right there is a febreze, New Zealand scent spray. I've heard from all of the adverts that it's used to make the air in a room smell nice but I've never actually used one and seen one used. Does that make me smelly? I don't think so. 

So when I was thinking of things to buy for my flat and room, these things as well as the obvious bedding and decoration spring to mind. I really enjoy cooking and baking (which will be explained more in next weeks post as I hope to be blitzing the kitchen) and whenever I go into shops like Lakeland I literally have a baking orgasm...seriously. I'm hoping to do some baking whilst I'm there, even though I know I'm going to be busy, I'm determined to bake! As you can see I still kept the green theme in my silicone cupcake tray, but sometimes it's hard to keep it going! The cutest thing in my little 'cook's collection' is my onion dome (the plastic domed container on the right). I just think it's super cute! It's to use when I chop half an onion to save the rest for later. I love onions so I think I'm going to get a lot of use from this.


These things are going to be my saviours in freshers week! Ibuprofen for all of the headaches, Rennies for all of my bloated needs and vitamin C so I'm not a zombie. But, you know, always..drink..responsibly..? (Go crazy!)


So that's the end of this week's post! Hope it helped some of you with some of the things that you might need to buy before moving into a place of your own. Have a good week and I'll see you later!

            My room is literally an IKEA