Too Faced SemiSweet Chocolate Bar Palette Review

If I could marry a palette I would marry this one. I would take it off into the sunset and spend the rest of my life with it, every day in bliss. 

I was very hesitant to buy the semisweet palette as I already own more neutral palette than any one face needs, but as I STILL can't get hold of the sweet peach palette (seriously if anyone knows anywhere I can get hold of it please PLEASE let me know) I thought I'd give it a go...

First impressions wise, I love the novelty packaging and it comes with a really handy 'how to' guide, ideal for some inspiration.

But the smell... Oh god the smell. Having not owned anything by TooFaced before I was nervous that it would smell like that nauseating fake chocolate smell that you get in cheap candles and other things that are meant to be chocolate scented, but it's lovely. It doesn't smell exactly like chocolate in my opinion, but it is lovely and sweet and it makes me happy when I open it up. 

It consists of sixteen different shadow shades, mostly neutral browns and oranges, with a few pops of pink and blue. There is a good mixture of matte and shimmer shades, with a couple of glitters too.

I absolutely love that you get larger pans of the light, highlighting colours, as these tend to be the colours that you use most of. It's simple but well thought out and was definitely a push factor in buying the palette.

Swatches over Urban Decay Primer Potion in Original and over nothing. Excuse the patchy swatches... I'm impatient and didn't wait for the primer to dry.

The colours in this are great and you can do SO much with them. They are all lovely and creamy, except Coconut Creme which is a tiny bit chalky. The pigmentation is absolutely amazing. With the Naked palettes I find I have to load up my brush quite a bit, but I barely have to touch these shadows to get great colour payoff. In fact I got caught out the first time I used it and ended up swiping a big, thick, dark brown line across my eyelid as I completely wasn't expecting it. 

I've been looking everywhere for a palette with great peachy oranges and totally wasn't expecting it from a chocolate bar palette, but Bon Bon, Caramel and Peanut Butter are exactly what I was looking for. 

I would recommend this to anyone. Especially as a first time buy or if you are on a limited budget. This palette will do everything you need and more.

This palette is available here for £37

Christmas Cupcakes for the ward!

With Christmas approaching, I decided to make some Christmas cupcakes for the nurses and other staff on my ward. I had so much fun with these. I made 12 chocolate and 12 vanilla cupcakes and piped them all with buttercream frosting. I used the recipes I got from the Angel Food Kitchen - I will share these at some point soon as they truly create the perfect cupcake.

I had so much fun with these, using Mexican Paste to model festive sugar shapes, the chocolate pretzel reindeer were my favourite though! 

I'm very pleased with how these turned out and all 24 were gone in moments!

Feel free to ask any questions about how I made anything. Did you create any festive bakes over Christmas? Let me know! 

CB x

Making Macaroons : Attempt 1

After way too many sofa days watching The Great British Bake Off, I got a real itching to give macaroons a go.

"It'll be easy" I said.

"What's the worst that could happen?"

I decided to make rose macaroons with a white chocolate ganache and as is often the case with last minute bakes, I only had about half of the ingredients. I nipped round to my corner shop in hope of getting some white chocolate, but alas - none in stock. I figured I could shuffled the recipe around a bit and bought some galaxy instead.

I got to work with the macaroons, I used the BBC recipe, which you can find here: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/macaroons_04669

All was going smoothly, macaroons in the oven - now mint instead of rose, so I went to get started on the ganache. Only I had absent mindedly snaffled more than half of the chocolate! Oops! Back to the shop for another bar.

It was then that I realised I'd forgotten to leave the macaroons to sit - no smooth tops for me! The sitting is a vital part of making the perfect macaroon, it allows air bubbles to rise and a skin to form on top, this is what creates the smooth and shiny dome that macaroons are so famous for. 

I got impatient with the ganache and tried to sandwich the macaroons way before it had set. Its still very runny once cooled, so I assumed that this was as thick as it was going to get, but be patient, it thickens up considerably if you give it even give minutes more.

 For a first attempt, I don't think they look all too bad!