Blogmas Day 21 - Christmas Party Snack Ideas

Last night I had my annual Christmas party where I had my friends round for some nice food and our Secret Santa gift exchange. Although it wasn't really secret since we all said who we had bought our present for and then opened them. I never usually open any presents until Christmas, apart from one from my nanny which is usually pyjamas for us to wear on Christmas Eve.

I love making snacks so here are a few photographs of the food we had (I love food photographs). I don't know if this is something people in America eat, or if this is just a British thing, but I actually love cheese and pickled onions on cocktail sticks. So good!

Then we had some lovely cranberry and white chocolate cheese with crackers. Also very delicious, and I do love some nice cheese at Christmas time.

Some carrot batons and a dip selection of Asda. There was also bread sticks and Doritos to dip as well.

If you follow Bethany (Macbarbie07) on YouTube then you may recognise these from her videos last year. She got salted pretzels and melted Hershey's Kisses on top of them, and then topped them off with an M&M. The combination of salty and sweet makes them absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, I left them under the grill slightly too long and the chocolate burnt a bit, I was not amused. Apparently they still tasted just as good though. I also couldn't get Hershey's Kisses anywhere so I had to just use some squares of chocolate. I highly recommend trying these if you haven't already, even as just a snack for yourself.

If you know me, then you'll know I love to bake, and no party is complete without me making some cupcakes. To get into the festive spirit I made some candy cane peppermint cupcakes. I'll not go into too much detail about these though as I plan on putting the recipe for how to make them up in the next few days. I also didn't have enough icing to put on the amount I usually do which made me quite sad, but they worked out okay! Apparently I wasn't having such a good baking day.

Some hot food was also made as you can see from the table. We had some mini pepperoni pizzas for the meat eaters, and also some cheese ones. Then there was loaded potato skins with cheese and onion, cheese and tomato, and cheese and jalapeno. Then there was also egg fried rice, and some cheese bites.

Please, please let me know what type of snacks you make if you're having friends over, or just when you feel like making something nice. I love getting new ideas, and snacks are my favourite!

10 Day "You" Challenge - Day 6

Today's challenge is 'five foods' which really shouldn't be too hard for me as I love food! I definitely have more of a sweet tooth than anything else. Once again, in no particular order...

Food one - cupcakes, an obvious one! Above are lemon butterfly buns I made a few months ago, I absolutely love lemon. I really enjoy making cupcakes whenever I have the time, or whenever there's a birthday coming up or I'm having people over for Christmas or other events. I also buy them anywhere else I see them when I'm out too.

Food two - ice cream. I absolutely adore ice cream. My favourite store bought one is Ben & Jerry's Baked Alaska. Whenever I'm out, I think my favourite is Nutella Bear from Mauds, or else any form of caramel flavour, which is weird because I'm not too fond of caramel in general. The photo that goes with this one is from a place called Morelli's in Portstewart and there is so many flavours to choose from. I ended up choosing Parma Violets which I've never seen before, and Pink Panther.

Food three - chocolate. I don't understand people who say they don't like chocolate because I can't live without it! I think I eat a bit of chocolate every single day. I gave it up for Lent this year (above is the collection I aquired during my time off) and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, you don't realise just how much chocolate there is in everything. It was so hard for me to pick an ice cream flavour whenever I went to buy any because a lot have little flecks of chocolate in them!

Food four - pizza. Despite the fact that pizza is one of my favourite foods, I'm actually pretty boring with it and only ever get a plain margherita. Not that this bothers me as I absolutely love it and I never have to even look at the menu anytime I go anywhere. I wish we had a California Pizza Kitchen because their pizzas are amazing and it's been my favourite pizza place so far!

Food five - pasta, the ultimate comfort food. Italian food is my favourite, and I love whenever I go out for a meal and there's pasta on the menu, especially one with a creamy sauce. Chiquitos do a lovely dish called Mac 'n' Jack which is plain macaroni cheese but with broken nachos on top and tomatos. At home I love to get a filled pasta and have a sauce over it, or else just use plain pasta, grate some cheese, and throw in some salt and pepper. So easy, and so good!

All photos above where taken by myself and can be found on my Instagram page by clicking here. You can follow me on Melissa___j

10 Day "You" Challenge - Day 2

Time for day 2 of the 10 Day "You" Challenge!

Todays category of the challenge is nine loves so here are mine below in no particular order :

- America! Anyone who knows me will know I absolutely love America and everything about it. I was clearly American in a past life, or was born into the wrong continent.

- concerts, and I say this because I've been to two concerts in the past few days. I saw Paramore and You Me At Six on Sunday night, and I'm seeing Foo Fighters and The Black Keys tonight. I don't normally go to them so close together but I do love a good concert!

- movies, this is probably going to make it's way into all of my tags, but I love films! That's what my degree was in and I have an ever expanding collection. My favourite genre is comedy and always will be, and I love my Christmas movies! I can never choose a favourite film in particular but my favourites include Stepbrothers, Anchorman, I love you, man, The 40 Year Old Virgin, 21 Jump Street, The Sitter, Horrible Bosses, Bridesmaids, The Hangover.

- baking, I do enjoy a bit of baking now. I usually end up eating more of the mix than the actual result, but I just need to make sure it tastes okay ;) Cupcakes are my favourite thing to make, and I love trying out new recipes.

- photography, apparently I take photographs of everything. This is very true. I like to take photographs of random things, in partciular the food that I'm eating. You can follow me on Instagram, I have a link at the top of the page or my username is Melissa___j

- handbags, I love handbags. These are my favourite thing fashion wise. I just love going window shopping for them and thinking about how one day I'll have an amazing job and be able to buy all the handbags I want. I'm still determined to own the Louis Vuitton I've been wanting for about 2 years now in the near future.

-family and friends, of course. These really shouldn't be so far down here, but this is in no particular order! I wouldn't be anywhere without them and they're the most important part of my life.

- Marmie, my lovely cat. I absolutely love this cat, and if you do follow me on Instagram, that's very clear! He actually takes up the majority of the app, and my photo space on my iPhone. He's crazy and does so many silly things and I could just watch him all day.

- YouTube, I spend too much time on here. I feel like I need to go on everyday and keep on top of my daily videos. I have to admit that recently I've fallen really behind on this, but I've just been too tired at night to really go online! I love all my beauty gurus, but also JennaMarbles and EpicMealTime, even got myself a wee tshirt last time I was away!

I hope some of you also do this tag if you haven't started it already. It's always interesting to see what other people are interested in. I'm obviously interested in make up, but I decided not to include this and let you all know a bit more about me.

All photographs above were taken by me, and were taken from my instagram page.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes Recipe

Today I made chocolate orange cupcakes with a Terry's chocolate orange segment on top. It's my sisters 16th birthday and I make cupcakes every year so after getting a new recipe book and cupcake tray today I decided to try one out!

To make 24 cupcakes -

Ingredients for the cupcake base :

• 300g self raising flour
• 250g unsalted butter
• 4 eggs
• 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 75g melted chocolate
• 250g caster sugar
• Grated rind of half a large orange
• 4 tablespoons of orange juice

Ingredients for the icing:

• 220g unsalted butter
• 450g icing sugar
• Grated rind of half a large orange
• 2 tablespoons of orange juice

Step 1 - Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and then place 24 bun cases into a muffin tray.

Step 2 - Break up the chocolate into squares and place in a dish to melt over a saucepan of boiling water. Leave to sit, stirring occasionally.

Step 3 - Put the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs and butter into a large mixing bowl and mix together. I usually break up the butter into small squares so it's easier to mix.

Step 4 - Next add the grated rind and squeeze out 4 tablespoons of the juice of the orange and mix together.

Step 5 - Spoon mixture into the cases and place in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the top of the cupcake springs back when lightly pressed. Once ready, remove from the tray and leave to cool.

Step 6 - Break up the butter into small pieces and place into mixing bowl . Beat until it has a smoother texture, adding a spoonful of icing sugar at a time. Once mixed completely, add in the orange rind and the orange juice. If the orange flavour isn't strong enough, feel free to add in another spoonful of juice.

Step 7 - Using a piping bag or tool, swirl the icing on the top centre, and decorate with a segment of Terry's chocolate orange. You could also sprinkle some of the extra rind on top.

Step 8 - Eat and enjoy!

Day 7 : Photo a day May

Day 7 : someone that inspires you. Today's photo was someone who inspires you. I thought long and hard about this and the person who kept popping up was Claire, the owner of Lily Pink Bakery. She done the same degree at university as me and has successfully created her own cupcake business and I find her very inspiring and she is the reason that I felt motivated to start this blog.