The Recipe: Lemon & Poppyseed Muffins

"When life gives you lemons, make Lemon and Poppy Seed cakes. Duh."

Give me anything lemon flavoured and I'm there. It could be Lemon Drizzle, Cheesecake, and I've even been known to grab a spoon and pot of Lemon Curd. It's not something I'm proud of. A citrus craving struck last Saturday which saw me picking up a load of lemons on the weekly shop, then creating an (organised) mess all over the kitchen. 

I chose this recipe after a quick google search, (but swapped the lemon extract for zest.)

To make 12 muffins you need:

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 of a lemon's zest
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
• 280 grams self raising flour
• 200 grams sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 medium eggs
• 63 ml oil
• 4 tablespoons butter - melted
• 188 ml milk

All you need to do is:
Preheat your oven to 175  ̊C
Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder
Add in the eggs, oil, melted butter, lemon juice, syrup, vanilla extract and lemon zest. 
Blend together and add the poppy seeds.
Spoon into your paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.


If you're feeling fancy you could mix together some lemon juice and icing sugar to drizzle over the top, then garnish with poppy seeds and a pinch more lemon zest. Pop the kettle on and you're done! 

Let me know if you're a lemon-lover like me, and if you would give this recipe a go. Send me a tweet if you do! 

NOTD: The Evil Eye DIY

If my bank account were a bottomless pit of money, (or if I had any amount of skill) nail art would be my thing. Sadly the reality is that I'm a student with very little hand-eye coordination! However, summer break has caused me to whittle away rainy afternoons by attempting nail art designs, and I finally have one to show you that went well.

The Evil Eye has been all over my tumblr dashboard recently in various shapes and forms - remember that design that Alexa Chung wore? 

Get this nail design in four steps! 

1) Paint a semi-circle at the base of your nail. Wait for it to dry! 

2) Take a nail dotting tool, or cocktail stick, to paint a small light blue dot in the centre of the semi-circle.

3) Once this is dry, paint a small black dot in the centre of the blue dot, to create the pupil. 

4) Paint over with a top coat, and you're done!  

Let me know your thoughts on this design- do you spend money on manis, or do you DIY? 

Take III

Jeans/ New Look . Shirt/ Dorothy Perkins . Boots/ Primark . Necklace/ Red Herring . Watch/ River Island

I've been suffering from a serious case of all round creative block, so strong that it took me a good twenty minutes to come up with a title, and I haven't blogged in ten days. Anyone else ever get this? It's like a never ending circle, because the more frustrated I get with myself, the more I struggle to write anything comprehensive. 

So instead, let's just talk about how good Barney is at posing, or what I'm wearing today. Or the fact that that it's only two weeks until the big day. Anyone that took A-Levels will know exactly what I'm talking about. Results day is looming, people.

 *curls up into a ball of self pity and denial* 

Back to the clothes, then. As much as I try to deny it, I will always be an ankle boots whenever and wherever kind of girl. So much so that I bought myself another pair of black ankle boots, the justification this time being 'I don't have a pair with a low heel that I could walk in all day'. Plus, they were only £15 from Primark. I would have picked them up in brown too, but they were out of my size. What can I say, a girl can never have too many ankle boots. 

Stolen Dance

Heels and jeans are my favourite thing at the minute. Not that I have many places to wear them, but that's besides the point. We've gotta dress up every now and then, right? Even if we spend the day sat around the house doing nothing much but watching Gossip Girl... Yep, it was one of those days. 

Notable mention goes to the song I've got on repeat right now- Stolen Dance - Milky Chance. There's also a certain Ariana Grande song that I can't stop playing (I've listened to it at least four times whilst editing this post together...) Recently I've been trying to update my iPod, so let me know what your favourite songs have been lately and I'll have a listen.