Saturday 26 April 2014

Beautiful Birdie

Anyone who knows me, knows my absolute love for Pinup Girl Clothing. For anyone new to this clothing company, I strongly suggest you visit their site! Not only is it a clothing store, but a community of beautiful, glamorous and intelligent women, plus everything in house is made in the USA. They have an active style forum, Facebook and Instagram page, and this community is something I hold dear to my heart.

I stalk their social media almost daily and nothing could contain my excitement when I saw the new colour-ways for the Birdie dress. I already own this dress in Red Rose and it's one of my favourite pieces, it's a great go-to for any occasion.

During the online yard sale, I had the perfect reason to order this dress (Note: I can always find a perfect reason to order a dress!) and I eagerly anticipated it's arrival. Thanks to Pinup Girl Clothing's super fast Fedex delivery I had my yard sale goodies in my finger tips in 5 days and awaited the perfect opportunity to give this dress it's first outing and my first blog review.

Apologies for the heavily imaged post.
3/4 Sleeve Birdie in lavender $118
This dress is made from rich stretch cotton sateen and has a delightful heavy quality to the fabric. My most favourite feature of this dress, is the oversized collar, which folds into a modest V shaped in the front, which is both elegant and demure.


The three quarter length sleeves, are roomier than I was anticipating which makes this dress comfortable and easy to maneuver in. The full skirt shows off your silhouette, and coupled with the matching belt nips in your waist so it can be perfectly defined.

I am wearing this dress with a pink petticoat from Kitty Rose Couture and simple back seamed stockings - a necessity for any fifties loving girl. This petticoat is by Spin Dance - Vintage Collection and is not scratchy or too voluminous for every day wear. I don't tend to wear petticoats on a daily basis - I prefer to keep them for special occasions, but this may change!


The full skirt is shown beautifully without a petticoat but for added fullness it definitely enhances my figure, it's also great for twirling!

I wear a medium in most of Pinup Girl Clothing dresses and separates and this is no exception. The waist is tight but not uncomfortable and I find the length perfect on my 6ft frame. My measurements are 36-28-40 for reference and the size chart can be located on the right of the image on the website. Their Facebook page is always active if you need help with sizing.

I don't think I can go any further without mentioning the stunning print and lavender colour - it definitely makes you stand out from a crowd and I had many compliments on it's first outing. It's coming up for Winter now in Melbourne, and even though this is part of the spring line, I will be wearing it a lot with tights and my leather jacket. It's too pretty to keep it away for Summer!


I am already wanting this dress in the Magenta colour and will be adding it to my wish list! Now let's put some more photo's in so you can appreciate the beautiful dress in all it's glory!



Such good quality fabric, and vivid print.

Always twirling!
Amazing twirling abilities - as I said!
Pinup Girl Clothing pretties always flatter my curves and this dress is the epitome of that. I feel glamorous and pretty, totally girly and I love it. The quality is unquestionable and the design eye catching and feminine. 

If you have any questions on the fit of this dress or any other items from Pinup Girl Clothing, please feel free to ask. I hope you enjoyed my review and found it useful x

Friday 25 April 2014

Red Velvet Dreams

Today mark's a day I am incredibly proud of. A small step closer to making my dreams possible.

I attended a presentation skills training session at work a couple of weeks ago, as a warm up exercise we were asked to select a topic card, and then talk for 2 minutes on that particular subject, with no preparation. The card I selected at random was; your favorite food. Obviously, I passionately rambled on about my love for cupcakes and sweet things in general, and I was told my excitement was infectious! The conversation continued during morning tea and I was asked if I ever made cupcakes to sell, I nervously said that it was something I'd love to do

Roll on to yesterday, I was approached by a co-worker to see if I would be able to bake something, in time for a Mad Hatter themed bridal shower this weekend. I immediately felt anxious, I'd never actually SOLD a cake, I had no idea how to price or charge for my work or time. In my mind I was thinking who would actually pay for something I had made?! The sudden doubt about my capabilities crept in, but I reluctantly accepted the challenge.


With the short time frame, I suggested Red Velvet - with the red/white colouring I thought it could symbolise The Queen of Hearts another Alice in Wonderland character. Plus they're delicious! Luckily I only had to bake 24, nothing too far out of my comfort zone but I needed each one to be perfect. A scary thought, considering I was trialling a brand new recipe, provided to me at my cupcake baking class.
Nothing more inviting than Red Velvet batter
Perfectly risen and baked 


















Today, I put all my love into baking 24 perfectly iced Red Velvet cupcakes. I love the colour of the batter, and the excitement of adding the vinegar at the end to watch the explosion of air bubbles incorporating into the mixture! Again, my trusty oven thermometer, allowed my oven to be the correct temperature allowing for perfectly even cakes.

Adding the cream cheese frosting and tiny love heart decorations
I'm so please with how each and every one of the 24 came out, I would be so upset to present a box of ugly cakes - but these are pretty, and I had a sneaky taste and they are yummy too!

My main grumble about cupcake stores is the amount of icing they put on top - I have a sweet tooth but I usually end up scraping a bit off as it gets too sickly! So I consciously took that into account as I piped my cream cheese frosting on.
Red Velvet Cupcake
What do you think? Would you pay for one of these...? If you would like the recipe on how to bake these yourself, let me know and I can write another blog post tutorial x

Thursday 10 April 2014

Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes

As well as my passion for all things pinup, I have a huge love for baking. Anyone who knows me, knows my ultimate dream would be to own a little vintage/retro cafe serving amazing breakfasts and sweet treats. Whilst I embark on improving my skills, I thought I'd bring you guys along for the journey of self improvement, and hopefully inspire some kitchen treats along the way.

This week I got home from work, and opened my cupboards looking for inspiration - the only thing staring at my were some brown, sad looking bananas. I'm not particularly a fan of bananas, I buy them because they are good for me, but they often sit there until I decide to turn them into banana bread (usually with chocolate chips!).

At my recent cake baking and decorating class I was taught a simple vanilla cupcake recipe, which provides a great foundation for anything you want to add, so I thought I'd experiment.

Yum! Recipe below.
 BANANA AND CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE

Ingredients all ready to weigh in.
Ingredients (to make 12 cupcakes)
100g Plain flour
120g Cake flour
170g Caster sugar
15g Baking powder
3/4 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Dutch processed cocoa powder
115g unsalted butter
120g Free range eggs
1/2 cup Full cream milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Mashed brown bananas

These cupcakes are not skinny, you need high fat content unsalted butter and full cream milk! Plus good quality cocoa powder and vanilla extract.

1. Before starting, weigh out all your ingredients and bring everything to room temperature (butter, eggs, and milk).

2. Pre-heat your oven to 163oC (fan-forced) or 173oC (non fan-forced).

Now, I know you're reading that thinking... '163'... yes it's precise. I have recently purchased an oven thermometer and it informed me what I thought was 160oC was actually over 200oC. No wonder my cupcakes were going mental in there!

This is called the one bowl method, for precisely that reason - everything in one bowl.

3. Sift all of your dry ingredients into your mixing bowl - both flours, caster sugar, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder.
My prized Kitchen Aid
4. Set your mixer on low speed (you can do this with a hand mixer too, you might just need a buddy to help you out!) - and add the softened butter chunk by chunk, until it's all incorporated and it resembles a sand consistency. Scrape down the bowl.

Sandy consistency of the dry ingredients and softened butter.
5. Add your eggs one at a time - keeping your mixer on slow. After one has just been incorporated add the next. After all have been added scrape the sides of the bowl down.

You may also notice the eggs are in weight - baking is a science. If you find it's about two and a half eggs - whisk the third and add until the correct weight.
Weigh in eggs, precisely!
Mixture after adding eggs.
                                     
















6. Combine your vanilla extract and milk together. Now slowly add a continuous stream of vanilla extract/milk- do not flood your mixture. Slow and steady. Again, stop and scrape your bowl down.

SLOW addition of milk/vanilla extract combo.
7. The final step, add your mashed bananas and mix on medium/high for 20/30 seconds - this allows air to get into the mixture.
Final yummy mixture.
8. Evenly distribute your mixture into a cupcake tray lined with paper cases and bake at 163oC in a fan-forced oven for 17-21 minutes.

DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR BEFORE 15 MINUTES!

9. Check on your cupcakes after 17 minutes, a skewer will come out clean if cooked. If not quite there, put them back in for 2-4 minutes.

10. Once cooked, remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool. As they cool, you can prepare the chocolate butter-cream frosting.

CHOCOLATE BUTTER-CREAM

Ingredients
125g Unsalted butter
3-4 cups of soft icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder
1/4 cup Full cream milk
1 tsp Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

1. Beat softened butter with your paddles attachment until white and creamy.

2. Sift icing sugar and cocoa powder into a separate bowl.

3. Add 3 cups of icing sugar/cocoa powder to the butter.

4. Add salt, vanilla extract and milk, beat until combined.

5. Continue to add icing sugar until desired consistency is reached. 

6. Beat for approximately 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

This frosting will keep in a air tight container in the fridge for two weeks, yum!

After your cupcakes have cooled, pipe the frosting and add your garnish! I grated some chocolate on top of mine. These will keep in an air tight container at room temperature for 4-7 days.

12 light and fluffy chocolate and banana cupcakes -these are sweet!


Banana and chocolate cupcake with chocolate butter-cream frosting.

Let me know if you try baking them, or if you found any of the tips and tricks helpful x