Kelly loved Tiramisu so I decided to try baking Tiramisu Cupcakes for her birthday. This recipe turned out really well . Took a longer time to bake, but it was not overly complicated. Used a recipe on CupCake Project’s blog and decorated it to my liking.
inspired by Cupcake Project > Recipe here
Ingredients
250g butter
440g sugar
135g flour
65g cocoa powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1. Mix butter and sugar until well mixed
2. Add in eggs and vanilla extract
3. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder)
4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.
5. Put in into a lined baking tray and bake for about 20-25minutes ( I never time when I’m baking, but just check after 2o mins)
You may eat it with ice cream or by itself when it’s cooled down. However, if you are a chocolate fan, you would like to make some chocolate topping for your tray of brownies.
There are many gooey awesome recipes for chocolate toppings. For a quick fix you can use a double boiler ( or put a bowl above your pot ) and melt dark cooking chocolate and spread over your brownies.
For decoration, I like using walnuts and grate some chocolate pieces onto each of the brownies.
Ingredients:
250g butter
220g sugar
370g plain flour
1 egg
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
1. Mix butter and sugar until well mixed
2. Add in egg and vanilla extract
3. Add in flour and salt
4. Cut out your desired shapes with your cookie cutters
5. Bake at 180C degree (pre-heat oven beforehand) for about 20 minutes or until golden brown
I used this same recipe to make the snowflakes cookies and the jam-filling cookies. For the jam cookies, I used a floral cookie cutter and used something to make a small hole in the middle. Each cookie will have two pieces: one with and another without the hole.
Let it bake and when it is cool down (must be cool down, otherwise your icing sugar will dissolve) sprinkle some icing sugar onto the pieces with a hole in the middle.
Turn the cookie without the hole upside down and apply some jam onto it. Take one with a hole and press it above the other.
For the snowflakes, I used larger round cookie cutter and did a simple icing recipe and using a piping bag, I piped out the design onto the cookie.
Ingredients for the icing:
2 egg white
50g icing sugar or more until the mixture thickens
Beat the egg white until fluffy and add in icing sugar until it thickens.
(Meet Min in the background who did not want to eat her cookie because “it’s too nice to be eaten”)
I used resealable bags which worked very well and also cheap over here ( £0.99p for a bag of 50/100 pcs) If not you could put them into air tight plastic containers to give to others 
I learnt this from watching Min. This is a very fast and easy recipe to follow, and it takes REALLY GOOD too, a favorite especially if you are a fan of NUTS!
1. Get a mixture of nuts and dried fruits. (chasewnuts, almonds hazelnut, peanuts, dried cranberry, sultanas, dried apricot, coconut)
2. But them in a bag and crush them into smaller pieces.
3. Mix lots of honey in the mixture.
4. Over medium heat, stir and add more honey until the mixture sticks together.
5. Add some cinnamon ( less/ more to your own liking)
6. Once sticky, transfer it into a lined baking tray and let it cool until it hardens.
7. Once cool, remove from baking tray and cut into cubes (it’s very sticky)
8. We decided to wrap them into smaller pieces of baking paper and twist the sides so they look like candy wrappers.
9. Pop them into a jar/ pack them into bags to give away!
This Christmas, I baked some cookies and sweets to give out. Found some new recipes online and improvised them- which turned out well and were well-liked by others. Thought of sharing some ideas in my discovery during my recent christmas baking. This was what Min and I did collectively- she made some Lemon Tea and Marmalade ( in jars) while I made the sweets.
Nuts Bar > Recipe here
Chocolate Brownies > Recipe here
Butter Cookies with Jam > Recipe here
Snowflake Cookies > Recipe here
Simplicity brings out the beauty in things. Min, a very dear friend of mine was leaving for Korea and in the midst of my huge workload, I wanted to make her a farewell card. This was done in 5 minutes and I thought it was something quite simple and easy to do, but beautiful at the same time. So I will like to share it with you.
I used an A3 card stock and folded it into fours. We later wrote all of our messages inside.
Fold into fours, vertically first, then horizontally. Punch two holes at the top.
Choose a ribbon and string it through, tie a bow and it’s done. It looks almost like a present by itself. Be creative and use pattern papers/ multiple ribbons
To read, she unties the ribbon, unfolds the pages and find all her messages inside.
In need of a card but you do not have much time to do one? Try this and have one in 5 minutes!
During my placement at Inpress last year, I proposed few book cover designs to Eggbox Publications. It was after my placement duration, they revert to say they liked them and would like to take them forward. Over the next few months, I continued with this project and finished it recently.
Got the great opportunity to redesign an existing book series which they are looking into implementing the designs onto more books in the future. I worked on 2 books: Rememberer & Dark and Unaccustomed Words. After many months of editing and reverting back within authors and the publisher, these were finally send for print. It is a great joy and rewarding to have your design being used in existing poetry books! Am excited to receive my own copy of it. Been great working with EggBox on these and am working on another book cover at the moment.
BOOK 1: Rememberer
BOOK 2 : Dark & Unaccustomed Words
Now available on amazon Was pretty mint seeing these actually being implemented!
It has been awhile since my last post . After my internship with The Point, I’ve concentrated in my uni projects with some side freelance work. I’ve not stop designing One side project that I enjoyed doing was for my workplace. While studying, I’m working part-time waitressing in a oriental Buffet called Buffet King. Somewhere in October, the manager approached and asked if I could design a christmas poster. In between my other works, I proposed 2 designs and these were later printed and used during the month of December.
This humble beginning has open doors of opportunity to design for Buffet King. I started with designs to be placed in toilets, then to design some tea labels and recently a Chinese New Year poster that has been used in the restaurant. It is rewarding to able to use my photography and designing skills as tools to help my working place, which is like a family to me.
Started by nailing down some concepts and ideas. From sketches I chose 2 of my favorite concepts and started to digitally design the images and later text. These are some of the images I used for the posters.
Why peppers? In most of the dishes in Buffet King, they are a common sight.
POSTER 1: Have yourself a Merry Christmas
POSTER 2: Dine like Kings and Queens
More corporate work, during my placement at The Point. This was coming up an idea for the upcoming Christmas spread catalog with the theme: Where Christmas Cost Less
During my 3-week placement at The Point, a graphic design company, I got the opportunity to work alongside with the others. One of my first tasks was creating various imagery/logo for the upcoming back-to-school leaflet alongside with some POS. Created in Illustrator, it was fun creating and using back-t0-school elements
3 options for logo saying Back to School for less… top marks for value
POS applications
She completed her Diploma in Multimedia, Life College in 2010 and is currently in her final year in BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Northumbria University. This a collection of work she has done and is passionate about. She enjoys taking scraps no one wants and turn it into something beautiful. She loves learning and is inspired along her journey in designing.
