Media Music Survey

Hello Everyone!

It would be of great help if all you lovely people could complete this survey for me. It is to gain some research for my media magazine which I have created, the survey only asks you questions about your music tastes. 

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Thank you so very much for filling out this survey, it will be of great help! :D Sorry this has been a bit of a boring post, but the next one should be better.

We're Happy!

Hello Everyone!

This post is partly a bit of self (class) promotion, but I thought it would be a cool thing to write about. At college I take Media Studies as an A Level, and am currently completing my A2 year, in this year part of the course is to learn about media in the online age. My teacher thought it would be a good idea to attempt to create our own parody/viral video to experience the process first hand, also this can be written about in our exam. We spent one lesson going out in small groups to capture some footage of people dancing in a variety of backgrounds to then piece together in the video. The next was spent cumulating and editing (I didn't go near the editing team, as I just can't use editing software to save my life, aha) the footage into one video full of dancing to Pharrell William's number one song, Happy. From this we posted it on Youtube, and then each member of the class was responsible to share it on any media platform out there...Twitter, Facebook, Email, Word of mouth and on here (Blogger). We were going to share the video, leave it for 3 weeks and then look back at how many views it has collated, to finally write up an evaluation of the experience. So far at this moment in time it has 444 views in 5 days!!
So here is the video, have a watch... like it, share it, leave a comment! Thanks :D

Have you recently filmed or taken part in your own parody or version of a song, or have you come across any out there on Youtube which you love... feel free to leave a comment below for me to check them out. :D

Oreo Muffins

Hello Everyone!

It was my dads birthday last week and he asked me to bake him some cakes to take to work with him on the Tuesday. His work does this thing where when it's someone's birthday, that person brings in cakes for everyone to share and celebrate their day (cute right!). So this year he allowed me to decide what I was going to bake, (I was the one making them, it's only right!) and I found a recipe for Oreo Cupcakes and instantly fell in love.
Below is the Oreo Cupcake recipe (ingredients and method included) with some lovely images to display the processes I went through.

Ingredients:
(For the cake)
* 250g Self raising flour
* 250g Light brown soft sugar
* 50g Cocoa
* 250g Dark chocolate
* 250g Butter
* 4 Eggs
(For the filling)
* 154g Pack of Oreo's
* 250g Butter
* 300g Sifted icing sugar
* A few drops of vanilla extract
* 1-2 Milk (if necessary)

Pre-Heat the oven at 160c/ Gas Mark 3

Method:
1. Mix together the sugar, cocoa and flour.

2. Melt the dark chocolate together with the butter over low heat- so you don't burn the chocolate. (I used a saucepan half full with boiling water from the kettle and a bowl with the chocolate and butter in over the top to melt it).

3. Into the dry mixture stir in the melted chocolate and the crack the eggs in. Beat the mixture until light and fluffy (a typical cake mixture consistency).

4. Poor the cake mixture into the muffin cases. Use up all the mixture topping up any cases that look too sparse. (You could do what I always do and use your finger or spoon to eat the leftover mixture- Yum)

5. Place in the oven for about 40 mins, until the cakes have risen. (Another way of checking whether a cake is baked properly is to stick a knife into the cake and if it comes out clean then it is done).
6. Transfer the cakes onto a wire rack and leave until cool.
7. Whilst the cakes are cooling, you can make a start on the buttercream icing. Beat the butter until it is of a creamy consistency. To this add the icing sugar and vanilla essence, then mix well. If you find that the mixture is slighlty dry then you could add a tablespoon of milk at a time, or if your mixture is too wet then you could add more icing sugar. (It can sometimes be a trial and error)
8. Crush the Oreo cookie biscuit parts and add about 3/4 to the mixture. (Here you could place the cookies into a food blender/processor, or simply get something hard and bash them)
9. Spread the buttercream icing over the cupcakes. To do this I used a piping bag to get a nice effect, but a knife or spoon will do just fine.

10.  Lastly sprinkle the remaining cookie crumbs over the cakes.

I hope that you enjoy baking these as much as I did. Oreo's are just simply amazing and anything you try to make with them turn out great!