VintageELLE is a British Lifestyle blog, focussing in on a Twenty Something's passion for all things Travel, Style & Food related. Follow for weekly Life Updates, Travel Diaries or Style Advice!

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Baking With Elle: How To Make Quick & Easy Cheese Scones....

P1050968

All of last week, I was craving Cheese Scones- salivating everywhere when I thought about them!! So I gave in & made some & thought, why not show you guys how I did it!!

I got out my trusty baking book I got from Wh Smiths & found a basic scone recipe, of course we needed it to be savoury though so I modified it by taking out the sugar (that would just taste really, really bad in a savoury treat!) & replaced it with cheese- clever me!!

Recipe at a glance:
450g Plain Flour 
55g Butter (soften)
100g Cheddar Cheese or alternative + a little extra for topping
250ml Semi-Skimmed Milk
2tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt & Pepper (optional)

1. Start by pre-heating your oven at 220c or 450F, personally my oven is a fan oven which will mean that generally everything cooks a lot faster!

P1050943

2. Ok, so you don't want your scones to stick to the baking tray because that's just, well it makes life difficult! So to prevent this greasing the baking tray is always a must, I'm using Flora margarine here but butter, spray on oil or baking paper work just as well- use whatever comes to hand!

P1050946

P1050945

P1050948

3. Now lets get into measuring out the ingredients!
First measure out 450g of plain flour (some recipes use self raising, but this one I'm using says plain!) & then add to that 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Mix it all into together & transfer into a sieve, which should already be placed over the top of your mixing bowl.

4. To prevent lumpy scones sieving is needed, there's no right or wrong way as to how to sieve- just as long as it ends up in the bowl then we are all good! The most simplest way to sieve is to shake the sieve in a side to side motion over the mixing bowl, if I was adding more dry mixture into a bowl then I would use a spoon to push it through the holes, as this prevents flour loss & spillages.

P1050950

P1050949

P1050951

5. Butter time! 55g is needed, which you then need to cut up into small pieces to make rubbing (ooerr!!) easier. Add into the flour & start to rub the butter & the flour together to make a bread crumb-like mixture.

P1050952

P1050953

P1050954

6. Of course cheese scones would not be cheesy without the cheese, so next get 100g (if you want more cheese add another 50g) of cheese & grate it into the mixture & stir in with a wooden spoon- grating the cheese makes life a lot easier as the mixture will not have random lumps of cheese in it & gives an evenly distributed amount of cheese to each scone.

P1050957

P1050958

P1050959

7. Nearly finished I promise! Now all the dry mixture has been created, you need to make the mixture wet so that it all binds together. Create a small hole in the middle of the mixture & start adding (small amounts at a time) the milk into the dry mixture & stir in so that it starts to make a dough ball! As the dough ball gets bigger, personally I like to use my hands so I can feel whether the mixture is too wet/dry, add in more flour/milk if needed & the heat of my hands binds it together better. Now I found that the mixture was slightly too dry, so I added roughly 100ml more milk into the mixture gradually so that it was slightly sticky- if it has lots of cracks in it, then its too dry!

P1050960

8. Now roll out your dough on a floured surface with a rolling pin- bear in mind how thick/thin you want your scones to be, personally I rolled out mine to be about 2cm thick as the dough does not rise a considerable amount! & then use a cutter to cut out your circular scones. 

P1050961

P1050962

9. Now a tip from me to you, if you want your scones to be easier to cut into & have a designated top & bottom, then cut out two circles & stack them one ontop of the other pushing down ever so slightly to bind them together round the edges. & there you have it! Glaze with milk & add left over sprinkles of cheese to the tops, to make them extra cheesy!

P1050965

10. Put in the oven for roughly 10-12 minutes (as I said, mines a fan oven so they did cook quicker) or until they look golden & springy! Take them out & put on a wire cooling rack for 5 minuets just to cool, or if you can't wait because the smell of cheese is just too much, then dive in straight away just don't sue me if you burn your mouths!!

P1050966


And there you have it, a quick & easy way to make cheese scones!
Let me know how you all got on- tweet me pictures or leave me a comment below & I'm now going to run off to have another one of these bad boys, because writing this post has made me crave one so bad!!!

^^ Check out the video for how I made them above ^^

Much Love,
Elle
xoxoxo
Share:

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Fashion Musings: Elie Saab Couture 2013......

You thought his last show was a piece of art, well this one is by far the best he has ever produced. Elie Saab- the name behind many award winning dresses including Blair Waldorf's 'powder blue' wedding dress, has yet again captured the fashions worlds heart for everything couture & ultimately fairytale.

Yes, I may be slightly late posting this nearly a week after he showed the collection at Paris fashion week, but I have to show you (if you haven't seen it already) how elegant, ornate, effortless & utterly beautiful these dresses are. I cannot pick which one I love the most! 

If I had to pick any designer to wear for the rest of my life, it would have to be Elie Saab. He would make you look like a true princess.

elie-saab-couture-ss13-036_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-034_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-002_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-007_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-041_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-008_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-009_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-013_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-021_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-023_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-016_CA

elie-saab-couture-ss13-031_CA
Images from Vouge.com

Which Elie Saab dress is your favourite?
Who had the best collection at Paris Fashion Week?

Much Love,
Elle
xoxoxo
Share:

Monday 21 January 2013

Though My Lens: Snow Day......


P1050898

P1050922

P1050899

P1050891

P1050849

P1050826

P1050796
© VintageELLE09

Just a few snaps from a little walk I took in the snow today. It's days like this when it's so quiet around, there's no traffic on the roads & your surrounding countryside is underneath a blanket of snow, that you realise how much you love where you live. I love living in the country.

 It's so nice because we all love a bit of snow here in the UK & there's something about it that's just so magical- it truly makes people happier!

What do you love most about snow days?

Much Love,
Elle
xoxoxo
Share:

Friday 18 January 2013

Beauty Haul & Review: Make-Up Academy.....

Hello lovely readers, hope you are all well.

As many of you will probably know/guess, I am always one for a bargain- whether its clothes, food, makeup, furniture, you name it I'm always on the look out for a bargain! 

So whilst I was out running a few errands the other day, I popped into Superdrug to buy my foundation & had a little browse of the MUA (Makeup Academy) stand. For those who have not come across this brand before I'll just give you a little run down of what it is all about: 
The whole 'ethos' is to provide "guilt-free makeup to every ladies makeup bag" as well as constantly "creating fantastic products that deliver great value for money".

Now I have brought a few things from Makeup Academy before, namely one of their eyeshadow palettes in Heaven & Earth, which I cannot rave enough about, (in fact if you want to see my thoughts on this palette click HERE)as well as various nail polishes. For me I don't feel like I'm breaking the bank when buying any of the products because for the value for money they are cheap & very good quality. I have never tried any of their products based on the face (that rhymes, cringe!) & so I noticed a couple of items that were new & I thought I'd give them ago!

P1050754
                                Conceal & Brighten Kit- £2.50

P1050756

P1050777

The first thing I noticed when applying the concealers was how greasy/slimy the texture was. You know really cheap lip balms/glosses that you get in a tin, that have a really greasy, thin consistency to them? Well, that's kind of what this feels like! But.... as I started to apply the peachier, dark colour of the two to my under eye circles, I actually began to like this product! Not only did it apply very nicely & evenly to my skin, but it concealed the darkness of my circles just as well as my trusty Mac studio concealer. So that was a huge plus, but of course the next hurdle would be how well it would cover up my acne & acne scarring. Now I have always struggled with finding the correct concealer to cover up my acne, firstly because I have very pale skin, every concealer I found (whether it's Rimmel, Maybelline ect)was way too orange for my skin tone. But also they never lasted a long length of time before I had to reapply it again-I'm also talking about when I was a teen. So I wasn't expecting again miracles here because it being such a cheap product, I honestly thought it would be too thin & not long wearing enough. However I was proven very wrong! Again it's the consistency of it that I don't like- it's far too greasy & cheap feeling when applying it to the face, but it covers brilliantly, is very buildable & lasts for a very long time. What I like most about it is the fact it doesn't look like I'm wearing concealer, sometimes cheap products have that cakey, cheap look about them because the sink into the pours leaving your face looking 'blah'- but this blends so well into my skin & luckily does not skin into my pours! It's the perfect colour for my skin as well & definitely is a cheaper alternative for my Mac concealer!

Finally it also comes with a pinky highlighter, which again is in a greasy consistency! But like the concealers, it blends really nicely, adds a healthy glow to my face & doesn't feel greasy on my skin. Overall I really like this palette & is such a bargain for just £2.50 for how good the quality is & for how nice it looks on the skin. Only down side, I don't like how greasy it is on first application, but I can definitely say that it does not look greasy on the skin & the greasiness go after you start blending it into the skin.

P1050758
                                       Beauty Balm (BB Cream)- £4

P1050761

P1050780

On first application of this product, the first thing I noticed was how thick & creamy the texture of the cream was (kind of like oil paint!). I have never tried a BB cream before so have nothing to compare this to, but for me I thought the consistency would be a little runnier, more like a tinted moisturiser & softer on application so that you could build up the coverage & that it did not feel heavy on the skin. So on application it was really difficult to work the the product, mainly because the cream was so thick you had to work really quickly to apply it all over without it drying too quickly & leaving your skin patchy in places.& also because it was so think, it made it extremely difficult to blend into the skin so my face was being pulled everywhere! Now I apply all my foundations with my fingers & then buff it into my skin with my Real Techniques Stippling Brush, so this is what I did when using the BB cream but it ended up leaving my skin really patchy in places. So after applying a second coat I was slightly happier with the finish to it, it did cover ok, definitely not a full coverage product, light to medium I'd say. But of course because it's a BB cream it does not cover any blemishes & hardly any acne scares/discolouration (as it states on the packaging!)

Now I kept on checking my face throughout the day to see how it wore & to be honest I was not very happy! About two hours into wearing it, I started to notice that my skin was already coming very greasy around my nose. I do have combination to oily so I am very much aware that because beauty balms do have moisturising qualities in them, that this could happen. But also what was happening was that even when I touched my face, the product would just come off in my hands leaving areas of my face not covered!So my overall thoughts on the BB cream are not that great- I would definitely not recommend it for anyone with combination/oily skin because it will make you look like a grease ball! & I'm sorry to say teens who are more likely to have oily skin & frequent breakouts, who will be the ones more inclined to buy this product & this brand, I'm sad to say again don't try it! Maybe it's just me, maybe the way I'm applying it is really wrong or it's just my skin type but I just feel like my face ends up looking like a greasy mess when wearing it!! I'm not going to give up though & will give this product a go again soon!


What are your thoughts on Make-Up Academy products?
Have you tried any of the ones I have mentioned?

Much Love,
Elle
xoxox
Share:

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Style: What's In My Bag #2: Winter Edition.....

P1050752

P1050750

Hello to all you lovely readers out there!

So today I was looking through my Youtube video's that I have been making over the years & I realised there are so many that are really outdated! So I got thinking & decided to do an updated 'What's in My Bag' video, not only because it is one of the videos that I love to watch myself on Youtube, but also because I always have so much fun filming these kinds of videos too!

Yes I do carry a lot of stuff around in my bag on a regular basis, what woman doesn't?! I'm kind of the South-East of England's version of Mary Poppins

What did I learn out of this video, I hear you say?
That I am a hoarder of lip products!!!

If you aren't already subscribed to my channel (umm where have you been!!! Kidding!) then go on over & have a look HERE.

^^^^ Watch the video ^^^^

What things do you guys carry around in your bags?
Are you a lip product hoarder?!

Much love,
Elle
xoxoxo
Share:

Tuesday 8 January 2013

A Mini Primark Haul.....

Primark is my little guilty pleasure.
A place to go to stock up on basics, have a rummage & find some bargains!!

So yesterday I took a trip into my local Primark (or Primarni as we used to call it at school!) to stake out some bargains- mainly jewellery that I had seen fellow Youtubers had purchased, but also to see if there was anything else that caught my eye (coughs: the bikini). Now Primark can be hit or miss- some days you come out with nothing, others you find so many hidden gems, but always always I'd advise that if you are going to buy some you must try it on! There have been many a time when I have not tried something on, normal due to pure laziness or that the fitting room has a queue a mile long, & I've got it home & either it looks disgusting on or there is something wrong with it (ie holes, buttons missing ect).

Yesterday though, I was very happy with my purchases (bikini is my favourite buy!) but you guys have a look & tell me your thoughts, I could be wrong!! 

P1050702

P1050667

P1050690
                                   Cross Earrings- £1.50

P1050665

P1050666

P1050684
                                Spike Stud Earrings- £2

P1050670

P1050672

P1050698
                                 Double Chain Necklace- £4

P1050675

P1050678

P1050676

P1050677
                        Dotty Bikini Top- £6 & Bottoms- £4

207762_10151266936949219_56875985_n

The day was also spent with my gorgeous friend & fellow blogger Joanna, (she has just started her own blog so click HERE to have a look & follow her if you like her blog) started off with a Starbucks, wondering around the shops, buying some balls (don't ask!!) & laughing a lot at the pavilion whilst watching people ice skate. I'm going to miss her so much when she moves to Sweden next week *sad face*


Have you found any bargains recently in Primark?

Much Love,
Elle
xoxoxo
Share:
© VintageELLE09 | All rights reserved.
Blogger Template Designed by pipdig