Bake: (Winning) Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Moist, chocolatey, orangey goodness... these cupcakes are rich enough and perfect for any occasion. I like that they look a little special with the orange segment on top but in reality they are quite easy to make.

These cupcakes have been made on 3 occasions recently: our housewarming, for my dad as a belated fathers day present and for a BBQ that we went to recently. They went down really well each time so I thought it was worth putting up a post. I'm quite proud of these actually because I entered them into a competition with Laura Ashley and won! If you want to have a go at these yourself the recipe is as follows (makes 12):

Ingredients
* 150g margarine
* 150g caster sugar
* 3 eggs
* 125g self raising flour
* 25g cocoa powder
* Terry's Chocolate Orange

For the icing
* 100g butter
* 200g icing sugar
* 75g cocoa powder
* The zest and half the juice of one large orange

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius (fan) and prepare your muffin tin with paper molds.
2. Cream together the margarine and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and blend into the mixture with a spoonful of the flour with each addition to prevent curdling.
4. Sieve together the flour and cocoa powder in a separate bowl.
5. Fold in the flour and cocoa powder a little at a time until it is evenly incorporated into the mixture.
6. Divide evenly between the cases and pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
7. Once cooked leave the cakes to cool for a few minutes in the tin then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
8. Meanwhile make the icing by blending the butter until it is soft and smooth.
9. Slowly sieve in and blend the icing sugar and cocoa powder until the icing is smooth and there are no bubbles of icing sugar/cocoa powder.
10. Add the zest and juice of the orange - you might need to add more or less depending on how runny you want the icing. I like it quite stiff so it doesn't slip off the cakes but soft enough to spread evenly.
11. Once you have iced your cakes with a palette knife or piping bag, use a segment of chocolate orange to place on top of each cake.

Let me know if you try your hand at these and let me know what you think! xxx

NOTD: Tropical Glitter

American Apparel 'Neon Orange' // £9 // Models Own 'Sunset Chillout' // £5 //

If you follow me on instagram you might recognise this amazing duo for summer, featuring two of my favourite polishes of the moment.

My Models Own collection is quite substantial now and the large majority of the polishes I own from them are glitter. I think that proves that they are definitely one of the best brands if you are looking for sparkly fingertips. In particular I really like the Hed Kandi range, so when I saw this new one I naturally had to pick it up. 'Sunset Chillout' is unlike any other glitter I own - an array of different shapes and colours of glitter suspended in an easy to apply clear polish. I love that the glitter is really packed into the formula so it applies as an even covering, rather than just giving you one or two pieces per application.

I think it goes really nicely with bright colours - this time I paired it with a neon orange from American Apparel which is another lovely polish (read my review here). What do you think of this combo? Do you have any favourite nail polishes for summer? xxx

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NOTD: American Apparel | Neon Orange |

Neon Orange // £9 // 15ml

At the beginning of last week you may remember when the UK actually saw some sun and life was generally better because of it. I think the very brief spell of warmth went to my head as it influenced me to put some colour back into my very boring essay filled life, and I opted to paint my nails the brightest shade I could find.  Now, a few NOTD posts ago, I blogged about a neon yellow shade from American Apparel that I had been bought for Christmas and was left bitterly disappointed by. Well, that has since been returned, but I still had a neon orange that I had also received so thought I might as well try it out.

Thankfully, the quality of this nail varnish has been a million times better than the yellow, so I'm hoping it was just a duff one rather than a representation of all of the range. I love that the colour really does live up to the neon name and I got many compliments when wearing this. Even when the fog returned (I think I jinxed it) this still managed to shine from my fingertips and brighten up my day. The wear time was also incredible and it lasted around 5 days until minimal tip wear set in - pretty fabulous in my opinion.

In regards to application, I used two thin layers to achieve an opaque finish and the wide brush made it a doddle. This polish dries to a matte finish so you could follow up with a matte top coat if you have one. I don't so I opted for my standard Sally Hansen.

I've now got my eye on more colours - especially the glitters (5 in total!) - and am hoping that the rest of the ranges can live up to this quality after being sorely let down before. What do you think of this colour? xxx