Oreo Cheesecake

Hello Everyone!

With Easter having just past us by, you may be a bit fed up with those never-ending chocolate eggs (no!? Well, a change may be what you're pining for). Although this is still chocolate, it is a change as it's Oreo biscuits and a creamy cheesecake filling- and who doesn't love Oreo's!? 

I have made this recipe a number of times before, and I can honestly say that for me, it took a fair few tries to get this 'perfect' and how it should be. Problems I've had have been; the biscuit base didn't stick together (too crumbly/fell apart), and the filling didn't set (it was more like melted ice cream). So I hope that this works for you, unlike my first few attempts- also there is no 'baking in the oven' involved.

Ingredients:
*1 packet of Oreo's (about 14 biscuits)
* 1/4 cup of Butter (or add as you go)
* 1 tub of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
* 1/2 cup of Sugar
* 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
* 1 tub of Whipped/Whipping Cream

Method:
1. Separate the Oreo biscuits (the two biscuit halves and the white cream centre), put cream in one bowl to use later.

2. With the biscuit halves crush them into crumbs, either mechanically or manually, and set to one side.

3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat. 

4. Pour the melted butter over the cookie crumbs to stick it together. If they don't form a 'buttery biscuit base' then you could add more butter until you get the correct consistency. Transfer the biscuit crumb mixture into the round baking tray and flatten to fit the tin. Place the tray in the fridge to partly set whilst making the filling.
5. Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence together in a mixing bowl, until well blended. For this you could mix it by hand or with an electric whisk or mixer.

6. Stir in the whipped cream to the creamy mixture- if you buy 'whipping cream' then you will have to beat it, until whipped (you could use a whisk or spoon and mix by hand-which will take a long time, or use an electric whisk or mixer). 

7. Pour in the cookie crumbs and the cream whites to the mixture and stir/whisk together until a smooth creamy consistency.

8. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the baking tray with the biscuit base and evenly spread over the top. 

9. Place in the fridge for a few hours or over night to set properly.

10. To serve, either cut into the cheesecake with a knife and serve. If you use a baking tray, like mine, with a removable bottom which will make the cheesecake look more presentable.

I hope that you enjoy making this really simple and quick cheesecake recipe, if you don't get it right the first time, don't worry its hard to get anything 'perfect' without attempting it multiple times. Trust me this happens to me many-a-time. 
I'd be interested to see how your cheesecake's turn out, if you choose to make it, post pictures or links! :D

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. 

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

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!

My Weekend Away

Hello Everyone!

The weekend just gone was probably one of the best I've had in a long while, it was full of great food, lots of laughs, emotions running high and spending some time with some amazing friends- and making closer relationships. 
I didn't go far, only to Emsworth (15-20mins drive from me), from Friday to Monday. It was a church youth event called 'Winterfest' where every February half term a huge group of young people get together to have a fun weekend doing activities, playing games and for the main reason of praising and worshipping God. This was my 5th year attending and I feel that through the years they have just got better and better, this time there was 120 young people from year 6 up to university attendees and graduates, which is the biggest one yet. 

On the Friday when we arrived we had to go set up our beds in the rooms we shared with our cell groups. Once set up we had a meeting- which involved a worship music part and then a talk about a specific topic.
All of the days follow this pattern with Saturday, we all got on two coaches (boys on one, girls on the other) and went to Guildford Spectrum leisure centre where we went swimming/diving and bowling. We were there most of the day, and when we got back we chilled out for 2 hours, waiting for dinner to be ready. Once again the evening ended with a music worship event and a talk. This meeting was followed by a ministry event which is where everyone got into their cell groups and had a prayer circle, a time to pray for anything on your mind. 
Sunday was met with waking up super early for breakfast, followed by normal church services. However, this Sunday was a baptism with 7 young people getting baptised in front of hundreds of onlookers. How amazing! Later we had some active games which consisted of; hockey, dodgeball, bin basketball, human inflatable fusball and inflatable jousting. My team lost every game we played, and unsurprisingly we lost the whole event. :/ Winterfest ended it's last night on a high, with a talk which included a rather successful science experiment (mentos in a coke bottle), which was a great way to show how we sought for God in our lives and how he works in ours. Also there was a stage diving competition, which shows how unconventional church really can be...

...Excuse the bad quality, I took a video from one someone else took.
Monday morning was just a huge packing down and tidying session, to put everything back into order. With hundreds of people taking part in the cleaning it didn't take long at all.

I felt like Winterfest 2014 was so good, and during the weekend I became a much more confident person and made some closer friendships who will all be with me for life. :D When it ended and Monday morning came around, I just know that I now can not wait for Summer Camp in July which is very much the same event- but much longer! :D 
How has your half term gone so far? Even if you don't get half terms like some (most) people, how was your weekend? :D

University Offers

Hello Everyone!

As of today, Friday 14^th February 2014 (also known as Valentine’s Day), I have received all 3 offers from the universities I have applied for. They are all conditional offers, in the hope that I achieve the grades to go in September, which is what I am aiming for.

Although I am 18, which is the right age to go to uni in the UK, I still feel so young- like I shouldn’t be going for interviews, applying for student finance or worrying about money. I should be having fun being young, spending time with friends- but in reality I will still be doing all of this at university, if not having a great time then I will have made lots of new friends who are interested in the same things I am. Whilst writing this I am getting super excited for September to come, not only will I have just started a degree, but I will either be, or nearly be 19 (Woah! Getting old, aha :P).

The 3 courses I have applied to do are;

* Magazine Journalism and Feature Writing- Southampton Solent University

* Multimedia Journalism- Southampton Solent University

* Journalism- Portsmouth University

3 very different courses in the subject of journalism, but from all I anticipate to gain the same if not similar skills of getting me closer to my ambition of becoming a magazine journalist or designing magazine layouts.

As you can possibly tell (if you know Hampshire, or have heard of it) that the two universities are both near each other (about 30 mins drive between the 2) which suggests that I don’t want to move away from home. This is partly true! Instead I will commute daily to and from my lectures. I see it as a blessing that the course I REALLY want to do (Magazine Journalism and Feature Writing) is so close to where I live! :D It just means the whole 3 years of uni will work out cheaper for me. For the tuition fees alone, after the degree I will be in £27,000 in debt- however, this is the cheapest loan you will ever pay back. My dad has said to me ‘Just think of it as a tax, paying a small amount back each month, ONLY when you earn over £21,000’- what a wise dad I have!

For me now it is a case of replying to these offers, selecting my ‘firm choice’ and my ‘insurance choice’, after that I have to wait for August to come round and open that envelope which will contain my fate (Ooo, scary!)

Congratulations if many of you, like me, have received all your offers! And I suppose it’s going to be a shared ‘Good Luck’ in your exams to everyone in this situation.

56th Grammy Awards Style

Hello Everyone!

This is a completely different type of blog post for me to do. I have never done a fashion related post before, and I thought as I do have a high interest in fashion it would be fun to do.  I have read quite a few fashion blogs from other bloggers so I have an idea if how to structure it. For this particular fashion inspired post, I thought I would share some of my favourite looks/styles from the 2014 Grammy Awards and share my opinions for each look.

All of the looks above are ones that I either particularly love or am not too sure of, but I just thought I would browse the internet to find some to talk about. I did watch the E! live on the red carpet at the 56th Grammy Awards programme on E!, which was the first time I saw these looks and then I watched E!'s Fashion Police programme where they rated or slated the looks.

This is Katy Perry  who wore a Valentino dress which with the music notes printed around the lower half of the dress suited the occasion very well as  it being a music award show. For me, this dress looked really messy, with the layers of sheer netting material and I also think that the style of the dress made Katy appear bigger in size than she actually is.

Anna Kendrik wore an Azzaro gown which was so beautiful. The colour of the dress is neutral, beige-y which compliments her skin tone and goes with the gold jewellery she is wearing. I love the panelling on the torso with the diamonte flower detail, it looks so cute and girly- it brings a slight bit of bling to the dress.

I really like Taylor's dress, she is wearing Gucci. The style of the slim fitting dress really suits her slim and tall figure, on the back of the dress there is a slit up the centre to just above the knee. Her dress shimmers with all the lights and camera flashes which makes it look beautiful and glitzy. Whilst watching her on the red carpet she talked about how her dress is made of a material similar to chain mail, and that it was really heavy. 

I adore this dress, Beyonce never seems fail style-wise at award ceremonies. She again did not disappoint this year (here she is wearing a Michael Costello dress), she managed to make her hairstyle suit the look and the white lace looks so pure and.... oh my there is not enough words to explain my passion for the dress. The shape and panelling of the lace on the dress looks so elegant and seems to fit her figure perfectly.

This is the last 'look' I am going to be sharing my opinion on and this is country singer Colbie Caillat. Here she is wearing an Ezra Santos gown and I think this is the most beautiful dress EVER, I have fallen in love with a dress which I can not even afford. The colour is so radiant, for some it may seem strange to wear a floor length red dress on a red carpet, but Colbie certainly pulls it off. Not many people may know who she is, but they will now! I love how she wore her hair in a high bun with the turtle neck appearance it worked so well. The red lacy flowers around the neck of the dress gave it some texture and for me it was this factor which won me over.
I would go as far as to say that Colbie Caillat was the best dressed at the 56th Grammy Awards.

This is the first time I have done a fashion post, I don't really know if it was ok! I have wanted to put some fashion posts up for some time, but have had no real idea of how to write it, so this was an experiment I suppose. If you have any advise or ideas for future fashion posts please leave me a comment below. :D