Currys in the Kitchen Glasgow Blogger Bake-off

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in Baking, Blogging, Food, Glasgow, Scotland

Tags

Bake-off, baking tips, bloggers, Currys, Currys in the kitchen, Food mixers, Glasgow, Glasgow bloggers, Joes Bloggers, Kenwood, Kmix, scottish bloggers, The Cookers School

On Sunday I went along to the Currys in the Kitchen Glasgow Blogger bake-off which was held at The Cookery School in the Jacobean Corsetry Building in Glasgow. The event was organised by Joe Blogs Network on behalf of Currys.

I’m no baker, in fact nothing kitchen related is my forte, so I was a bit nervous about going but I thought it would be fun all the same and it was 🙂 There were a lot of bloggers there so it good day for meeting other Scottish bloggers.

Image courtesy of Joe Blogs Network

Once we had all arrived we split into teams of three to bake. I teamed up with Lynne and Paula who were both lovely, you can check out their blogs here and here. We tried our best but none of us were up-tight about creating masterpieces so we had a lot of fun.

Although we weren’t expecting to create masterpieces, the chef from The Cookery School, Danny McArdle taught us well and demonstrated everything very clearly so I surprised myself by creating some cakes that I was actually proud to take home.

Image courtesy of Joe Blogs Network

Danny showed us how to bake scones, cupcakes, muffins and a Victoria sponge:

Danny also gave us a great tip for adding filling to small cakes like cupcakes. Use a tooth pick to make a small hole in the cake and twist until you it is big enough to insert the filing using an icing bag.

Toothpicks are also really handy when it comes to decorating too:

When we weren’t baking we were eating, so I can’t tell you which part of the day was most fun. We got to eat one of our scones with some tea and then later we had lunch, I had a lovely soup which I scoffed before I thought to take a picture of it (blogger fail I know) and then we were offered raspberry panna cotta’s.

After we had made all of our bakes it was time to box them up:

I took a nice full box of cakes home as you can see. See that cupcake with the butterflies on it? I originally tried to make that a halloween cupcake which was topped with white chocolate and had the word ‘Boo’ written on it in milk chocolate but I messed it up quite a bit. This wasn’t too much of a problem as I just used a toothpick to swirl the 2 chocolates together to create a new design and hide my mistake. My top baking tip? Keep a toothpick handy. They can be used for everything from making it easier to fill cakes, decorating and disguising mistakes.

Once our cakes were boxed up it was time to find out who had won the competitions of the day (best baking tip in a tweet and best instagram pic)

Congratulations to the winners who won Kenwood Patissier Food Mixers

The blogger on the left is Charlotte who was seated at the same table as me during lunch. She’s really nice and has a cool blog – coloursandcarousels

The rest of us didn’t leave empty handed either, in addition to our bakes we also got to take home great goody-bags:

I couldn’t believe we were all given Kenwood Kmix’s from Currys. Since I got that, a nice little recipe book and I learned a lot about baking on Sunday I’ll definitely be spending this weekend in the kitchen 🙂

If you bake too or if like me you want to start and you want some funky kit then check out Currys kitch range at http://www.currys.co.uk/

Thanks to Joe Blogs Network, Currys and The Cookery School for a great day!

If you want to find out more about the day or read posts from some other bloggers who were there then check out #currysinthekitchen on twitter or visit http://techtalk.currys.co.uk/cooking-home-appliances/bloggers-bake-off-the-cookery-school-glasgow/

Toast of the Town Photography Workshop

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in Glasgow, Photography, Scotland

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blogger Event, blogger meet-up, blogger workshop, bloggers, Buchanan Street, cone-head statue, Dreghorn Photography, Edinburgh bloggers, flowers, George Square, Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games, Glasgow bloggers, ISO, Joes Bloggers, lion statue, Millennium Hotels, photography, pigeons, Royal Exchange Square, Shutter speed, Statues, Toast of the town #toastofthetown, workshop

So on Saturday I was lucky enough to attend the Toast of the Town photography workshop hosted by Millennium Hotel in George Square ( a gorgeous hotel, see for yourself at http://www.millenniumhotels.co.uk/millenniumglasgow ) in partnership with Joes Bloggers and Dreghorn Photography.

The workshop was very useful and I learned how to properly use the ISO and shutter speed settings on my camera. I also learned the most important rule of photography – NEVER USE AUTO!

We learned the basics about ISO and Shutter speed and then we got to practice with our cameras to reinforce what we had learned.

I am so glad that I learned about how to use my camera’s shutter speed settings because now I can go from this:

To this :

We also learned how to pick the right background for portrait photos. My partner for background exercises was the lovely Laura from http://www.lifeasanhourglass.com/ and here are some of the images I took of her :

Then it was time to break for lunch.

I had a haggis bon bon, a mini burger and a venison sausage hotdog. I have never tried venison before but I was very impressed with the venison sausage, it was a little tough but tasted great. There were also gorgeous looking desserts on offer but I was too full to go and get one.

After lunch we visited George Square, Royal Exchange Square and Buchanan Street and were let loose to put our lessons into practice and take interesting photos.

I spent most of my time experimenting with what I had learned about ISO and shutter speed so I took a lot of rubbish photos but there were some that I liked:

Photos from George Square

Photos from Royal Exchange Square

Photo from Buchanan Street

At the end of the workshop I was given a nice goody-bag by Millennium Hotels which contained, among other things, a camera cleaning kit which will be very useful 🙂

To see the pictures taken by other bloggers during the workshop checkout #toastofthetown on twitter.

Thank you to Millennium Hotels, Joe’s Bloggers and Dreghorn Photography for a great workshop, I learned a lot!

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

Dower & Hall – For when it needs to be special

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by masquerade21 in Fashion, review, Shopping

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

bespoke, bloggers, bracelets, British, Celebrity, charms, chintz, Designer, Dower and Hall, engagement, event, Fashion, feather, Glasgow, gold, hearts, Inspiration, James Bond, jewel, jewellery, Judi Dench, Kasabian, lockets, M, pearls, pendants, Press day, rings, severine, shopping, silver, spiral, unique

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend the Dower and Hall Press Day in Glasgow. I was absolutely thrilled to get an invitation, especially since most of the press invitations I get are for events in London which isn’t even in the country I live in. When I received this one and a) it was from Dower & Hall and b) it was in Glasgow, there was just no question about whether or not I would attend.

The Glasgow Dower & Hall store is tucked away on the first floor of the lovely Princes Square shopping centre. Princes Square is a gorgeous little shopping centre which is full of luxury stores. I normally only go there to wander around window shopping so this time it was actually quite nice to go in with some purpose and walk straight into a store.

I was actually the first one to get there and this was my first time attending a press day so I was quite nervous and as at first it was only me and the store staff I felt a little awkward. That didn’t last long though as the Dower and Hall team were all really friendly and soon I was chatting away to Dan Dower.

Now before I even tell you about Dower & Hall jewellery or review the lovely piece that I was gifted, I will tell you the main reason why you should go there if you ever want something special. Dan. Dan is the reason. He is one of those rare and lucky people who love their job. And what does he love most about his job? Turning an idea from your imagination into a real, beautiful and one of a kind piece of jewellery. He showed me some images of bespoke pieces that he had created and they were all really lovely. If you commision a bespoke piece he will really go above and beyond for you. He even goes so far as to cast the pieces in silver and then plate them in gold or whatever the client wants and set them with cubic zirconia instead of diamonds just so you can wear the piece and say ‘yes I want it like this’ or ‘please change this and make it x’ so you always know that the finished piece will be exactly as you imgained it. Dan showed me some beautiful images of the pieces he has created in the past but unfortunately I don’t have them to show you.

I can however show you one of the members of Kasabian wearing a feather pendant that they commisioned from Dan and also Judi Dench wearing Dower and Hall pearls in the latest James Bond film Skyfall:

To be totally honest, Dower & Hall is a bit out of my price range, my budget only allows costume jewellery at the moment but now that I have met Dan and seen his passion for what he does and heard him describe how he really wants to create exactly what clients want and imagine, I am sure that I will be seeking him out for the one piece of jewellery that I will want to be unique, my wedding band (not that this is on the cards at the moment) So, if any of you would like to have your own unique piece of jewellery created, you know who I would recommend.

Here are a few of my favourite pieces that are on sale at Dower & Hall at the moment :