Happy Halloween

If you haven't guessed, I bloody LOVE Halloween! What's not to love? Dressing up, fake blood (which took several days to wash off), elaborate make up, it's got it all. So here's a few snap shots of my Halloween celebrations. I can't wait to see everyone else's photographs of their outfits!

And don't let those Jack O Lanterns go to waste! Make pumpkin pie or pumpkin loaf! 

Happy Halloween.

Pumpkin Loaf Goodness

So as I mentioned earlier, I made a classic pumpkin pie, see the post about that here, and still have so much left that I was able to branch out and try a pumpkin loaf, that ended up looking like this:

YUM.

Do you want to make it? Well here's what you need:

• 340 g peeled pumpkin
• 150 g clear honey, plus 2 tsp to glaze
• 150 g self-raising wholemeal flour
• 150 g self-raising white flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 150 g butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds  

 Now this is really super easy, I promise. Preheat you oven to 180C or gas mark 4. Boil the pumpkin for about 10-15 minutes, you want it pretty soft. Then drain the pumpkin, whack it in a bowl and mash it all up into a delicious orange mush with a potato masher and add the honey, if you don't have honey, golden syrup works just as well.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, then rub in the butter with your hands until it looks a little like bread cumbs, it's messy but totally worth it. Finally add the pumpkin and give it a good mix with a wooden spoon.

Then all you need to do is cram it all into a greased loaf tin and bake for up to an hour. You'll know when it's done because it'll smell divine! But you can always do the knife test, stab the middle of the loaf with a clean knife, if it comes out with no doughy mixture on it then it's ready to come out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. While it's cooling down, smear some more honey over the top and sprinkle some pumpkin seeds (although I didn't have any and used sunflower seeds) the sticky honey. 

Let it cool, cut into chunks and enjoy!

It was so tasty that Hollie from Livilunches reviewed it! I'm honoured, read her post here.

Happy Halloween folks!

Pumpkin Pie

After using a giant pumpkin as a Halloween prop (see it here) I thought I should take it home and make good use of it. Off to the kitchen I went!

 Pumpkin pie is so underrated here, I made some last Halloween (although it went a weird, green colour) and although it's an odd texture, it's really super tasty! It's also pretty simple to make, here's what you need:

• 750g pumpkin , peeled
• 350g sweet shortcrust pastry (I cheated and used a ready made one)
• plain flour , for dusting
• 140g brown sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp nutmeg 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 eggs , beaten
• 25g butter , melted
• 175ml milk 

First preheat the oven to 180C. Now, boil the pumpkin until it's lovely, soft and gooey. Then drain it and stick it in a bowl to cool. Then roll out your pastry and cover a greased, loose bottomed cake tin (it makes it so much easier to get it out of the tin, trust me!), add in some parchment paper and baking beans, then bake for 15 minutes, take it out and let it cool.

Once the pastry it out of the oven, crank up the temperature to 200C. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon, then add the beaten eggs, milk and butter. Once you've mixed all of that in, whack in the pumpkin and give it a good mix. Then all you need to do it fill the pastry case with this pumpkin filling and get it in the oven. Keep the high temperature for the first 10 minutes, then reduce it back down to 180C and leave it to bake for another 30-40 minutes.

The filling will go all lovely and golden when it's ready to come out of the oven, when it's done, get it on to a cooling rack and leave it to cool. Here's mine below with a piece of pumpkin loaf (recipe is on it's way)...

It's really tasty eaten warm, cold or even re-heated in the microwave, apparently..

Monster Mash

Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year, especially when it means I can have some fun at work. I've had a good few days of playing with pumpkins and Photoshop to create some surreal and fun imagery for Schuh for this week leading up to Halloween. So here's what I've been up to:

Is everyone looking forward to Halloween? I have lots of pumpkin recipes to come, because I couldn't let the giant pumpkin go to waste so stay tuned!

A Shoe?

A Julian Hakes shoe, you heard me, a shoe.

I love that I get to photograph things like this but would anyone actually wear them?

Love

I'm pretty much in love with this song, this man and his voice. That's all.

IKEA

No words needed, the new IKEA ad is delightful.

Zakari Love

I am a huge fan of Hannah Zakari, her shop in Edinburgh is a little cave of goodness. I all ready have the brilliant BLAM necklace:

I'm currently coveting this little beaut, the Whale Necklace:

Because a girl can never have too much jewellery right? Right.