Recipe // Nigellissima Nutella Cheesecake ♡

Hello there! So me and my friend Ma'suma who doesn't have a blog (yet, I tried persuading her briefly) made a nutella cheesecake when we had a movie day/sleepover and I thought I'd post the recipe and go through the process of making it. This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, and we basically followed the recipe online but in case you want to see the process of making the cheesecake - keep reading.

What you will need:

• 250g digestive biscuits
• 75g soft unsalted butter/margerine
• 400g jar of nutella (and a bit extra so scrapings of an old jar)
• OPTIONAL - 100g chopped hazelnuts
• 500g cream cheese (keep at room temperature)
• 60g icing sugar

Method:

1. Break the digestive biscuits up, we did this using a plastic bag and a wooden spoon.

I had a lot of fun smashing the biscuits haha

Once you've finished smashing up the biscuits, it should look like this.

2. Get a tablespoon of nutella. We used the dried up scrapings from a jar I needed using up so we had to melt it. If you have soft nutella, you can skip the melting.

3. Melt the nutella with the butter, don't let the butter turn completely into liquid - you only want to soften the nutella and the butter.

4. Put the digestive biscuit mix in a bowl with the nutella and the butter, and mix it up until it resembles wet sand.

5. Grease the tin.

6. Pour the contents of the bowl into the tin and flatten it, this will form the base of the cheesecake. You will need to leave this in the fridge for about an hour, when an hour has passed just feel it to make sure it's quite hard.

7. When your base has hardened, put your cream cheese into a bowl.

8. This is optional but we thought it was a good idea, mix up your cream cheese with a hand mixer to make it a bit softer and easier to work with.

9. Add the nutella to the bowl.

10. Mix up the cream cheese and nutella with the hand mixer until all the cream cheese is mixed in.

11. Put the contents of the bowl into the tin on top of the base you've already made, try and smooth down the top as much as possible because the cheese cake will harden this way. After you've done that, place the tin in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours. It tasted great after 4 hours, don't get me wrong, but when we tried it again the next day when it was nearing 24 hours it tasted so much better. So if possible, leave it overnight.

12. Take out your cheesecake and do whatever you want with it! You could sprinkle hazelnuts over the top, we didn't do that but we put icing sugar on our slices. We left the actual cheesecake itself alone so whoever was eating it could decide what they wanted with it.

Hope you try this out for yourself, it was so good!

I'm not taking any credit for this recipe, all the credit goes to Nigella Lawson.

Music Monday #2

Hello there! So I've only done one music Monday post before, and I was going to make it a weekly thing for me but I didn't because I usually listen to the same songs for ages and then get into some new songs gradually but it's gotten to the point where I have completely new tracks that I'm listening to :)

1. Boy's Don't Cry - The Cure

This is a 'mainstream' song by The Cure, and I hadn't really listened to them before but I really love this song and I'm ashamed I didn't get into them sooner. The guitar part is reminiscent of The Smiths for me and the song in general sounds a bit like The Smiths (at least I think so) but it's a great song.

2.Wild World - Cat Stevens

I had heard this song ages ago but I've been listening to it basically on repeat at the moment, it reminds me a lot of skins (generation 1 if you don't know but you probably do) and I like watching the skins version too but the Cat Stevens one has a lot more heart, it was at this point I realised my music taste is basically the same as my parents (I'm a cool kid I know)

3. Hard out Here - Lily Allen

A while ago, Isabella and I did a vlog where we were featured singing this song. Lily Allen has made a comeback and I am so happy. She is so satirical and funny and that's why I like the song because it's done ironically, I am looking forward to hear more music from her because I missed her when she left the music scene.

4. Royals - Lorde

Okay another mainstream song, so let the hipsters shoot me. I like Lorde's style, it reminds me a bit of Lana Del Rey and this song is just a bit of fun. Also, my philosophy teacher recommended this song to our class and I don't recall anyone in my philosophy class really paying much attention but then she became really famous, my philosophy teachers are amazing just saying.

5. Howl's Moving Castle Theme

I don't know if it's a bit unorthodox to put in film music in a Music Monday post but I have been listening to this non-stop, and I've printed off the sheet music and I've been learning it on the piano because it's that beautiful. I absolutely love studio ghibli, and this film is so lovely. I'm slowly building up my studio ghibli DVD collection (cough cough Santa) but the music in all of the studio ghibli films is really lovely to be honest.

Thanks for reading, I didn't feel I should mention this but I've also been loving the Harry Potter soundtrack after doing the tours and watching the films :)

Harry Potter Studios and What I Bought There ♡

Hello there! So I went to the Harry Potter studios in Leavesden on Friday 13th December 2013 (won't be saying 2013 for much longer), and it was absolutely magical (see what I did there), I took some clips and had originally filmed a haul but long story short it wouldn't upload so I've just got the clips put together and I have quite a lot of photos and what I bought - on with the show!

 The Harry Potter bus!
If you want to take the bus to the studios (which I recommend unless you're driving), it's £2 for a return ticket and £1.50 for a single. It picks you up from Watford Junction and comes about every 20 minutes, the journey takes roughly 12 minutes and they play a video on the bus so sit at the front! Me and my friends said right at the back to be together so we couldn't really hear the video but oh well..

These passports come with a child's ticket but all of my friends are adults, we had a really kind tour guide who saw we wanted them so she ran off and came back with a stack just for us! They basically have spaces on each page for you to imprint a pattern which you can find at different locations in the tour, it's just a nice little souvenir to have especially if you don't want to have to spend too much in the gift shop but want to take somethinghome!

Gryffindor Boys Dorm

The Mirror of Erised

Dumbledore's office

Me and Antoinette being Ron and Harry

Me and my boy

Again.. me and my boy

The knight bus, I apologise for the lighting - it was night time. Next time I go, I'm going in the day time just to get better photos but at night it was absolutely beautiful - night and hogwarts in the snow is a great combination.

The wand chooses the wizard Mr Potter! Click over to Isabella's page

When we all got back to Antoinette's, we watched all 8 movies back to back. Well, maybe I should say me and Antoinette watched all 8 movies back to back. Lizzie watched with her eyes closed.. I tried to take a picture of the golden snitch cake pops we had but it was really blurry and I didn't realise until they were gone. We also made cauldron cakes but they were a bit of a fail, and we bought chocolate frog moulds but we didn't use them in the end. We made butter beer too but we didn't follow the recipe and so I had a big blob of butter in mine which was.. great..

WHAT I BOUGHT:

Time turner - £8.95
I really wanted one of these, I'm going to acquire a chain for it so I can wear it like a necklace but it's really cute. There are cheaper key rings, but they're still £5 - £10. It's a pricey store, I'll tell you that.

Chocolate Frog x2 - £7.95 each
Some pricey chocolate BUT you do get a wizard/witch card with each chocolate frog, the frogs aren't hollow so it's pure chocolate, and it's huge. The cards are also sort of holographic, I got Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw. Apparently you can only get the house founders which was disappointing, I was hoping I'd get Godric Gryffindor because house pride!

Snape Postcard - 95p
One of the cheaper things in the store, you can buy a pack of 10 for £8.95 but spending nearly a tenner on postcards felt a lot so I just got a postcard of one of my favourite characters. They didn't have one with Draco on, I'm guessing they were sold out or non-existent, otherwise I would've gotten one with Draco on it.

Hedwig backpack - £29.95
A pricey backpack (sorry I'm overusing that word now). I wanted a Hedwig plush toy which from what I read online would be about £22.95, I was prepared for that, but they only had Hedwig puppets and the backpack looked cute so I got that instead. They have plush toys of loads of the animals, like Scabbers, Fawkes, Aragog, random owls, Crookshanks, pygmy puffs..

Harry Potter t-shirt - £15
I'm glad I got a tourist type t-shirt because I don't have any Harry Potter shirts and this has most of the characters on (some were under my skirt such as Draco..) and I wore this to school on the following Tuesday (I wasn't emotionally ready for school on the Monday) and so it sparked conversation with people asking how the tour was, which was nice, I'm still not emotionally ready to upload all the photos to facebook (Facebook isn't ready either as it won't let me do it)

That's everything I bought, hoped you enjoyed the post!

The Christmas Tag ♡

 Hello there internet peoples, I was tagged in 'the Christmas tag' by Abbie which is cool because I really enjoy doing tags (if you couldn't tell my last 50334945394 posts are tags.......) I am trying to cut down on doing the tags but seeming as it's nearly Christmas I felt I had to do this, but from the new year I think I might try and limit it to a tag a month or something.

1. What is your Favorite Holiday Movie?

Probably Elf because it's cute and funny and adorable and it makes me happy. I also like Miracle on 34th Street (the original of course) and most romantic comedies seem to revolve around Christmas so I make sure I watch a rom-com or two around Christmas (it's Bridget Jones' Diary most of the time)

2. What's your favorite Christmas Colour?

 Silver

3. Do you like to stay in your PJs or dress up for Christmas?

I stay in my PJs until lunch then I change into something a bit nicer because if I'm going to be filmed I need to make sure I don't look like a complete troll.

4. If you could only buy one person a present this year who would it be?

could I buy one present for the whole family??

5. Do you open your presents on Christmas eve or Christmas morning?

I open my stocking on Christmas morning with my younger brother, then my other presents in the late afternoon. Who would open their presents on Christmas eve???????? Is that even normal???????

6. Have you ever built a gingerbread house?

No but I want to

7. What do you like to do on your Christmas break?

Watch movies, eat way more than I should, and usually do a puzzle as it is the family tradition (we have a Disney princess one to do this year!!!) Although this year I will be revising most of the time for January mocks..

8. Any Christmas wishes?

Just that everyone has a nice day and is thankful for what they have and for what they receive

9. Favorite Christmas smell?

Chestnuts roasting on an open fireeeeee, seriously though just the smell of bacon sandwiches. I know that sounds weird but in my family on Christmas day we have bacon sandwiches, yes we only have fry ups like once a year. No turkey/chicken until Boxing Day because that's when my grandparents visit, but the smell of sizzling bacon... yum.

10. Christmas meal or treat?

The tins of chocolates that disappear all too quickly

Thanks for reading, I tag all of my followers to do this and if you do please post a link below because I'd love to read it :)

♡

P.S I am going to Harry Potter Studios next week so that will probably be my most interesting post since I joined the bloggerverse..

The Sweater Weather Tag ✩

So I saw that Chloe had done this tag as part of her Blogmas (day 3) and it looked interesting so I thought I'd do it too, I was considering taking part in Blogmas but my life isn't interesting enough to write things everyday so I apologise if you were expecting or wanting me to take part (it's ok I understand if you didn't..) but anyway I thought I'd do the tag as she tagged all of her followers to do it. Whilst I'm not planning to do Blogmas/Vlogmas, I am hoping to do more vlogs this month because I'm doing more interesting things!!

Favourite candle scents for this time of year?

I don't really use candles in my room due to the fact that I'm terrified of setting anything on fire (I am hoping to acquire a Yankee candle tart melt so this won't be an issue) but I really like sweet scents all year round, I am quite liking apple and cinnamon at the moment though.

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate?

I like all of them though :-( coffee comes last for me though, I like hot chocolate when I'm getting cosy in bed and watching something like a movie or, at the moment, Sabrina the teenage Witch so I guess Hot Chocolate but tea has a special place in my heart.

Dark Lips or Winged Eyeliner?

Winged eyeliner definitely, anyone who sees me at sixth form knows that I wear winged eyeliner everyday. I'm not a big fan of lip colours, I stick with good old vaseline or lip balm.

Favourite Fragrance for Fall?

I'm really enjoying the Love hearts perfume haha, it's not an expensive one but it's really sweet and it makes me feel like a walking sweet shop.

What is your most worn sweater?

My cream jumper from Primark last year, it's baggy and lovely and just awesome 

Hats or Scarves?

I would normally say hats but at the moment I've been stealing Antoinette's gryffindor scarf which she borrowed from Megan so at the moment scarves haha.. by the way you should follow them because they are super cute :)

Favourite fall nail varnishes?

In all honesty I'm not really a nail varnish person, I wear clear nail varnish if anything haha

Football games or jumping in leaves?

Do I have to do one? I haven't played football in years and I don't like leaves.. I don't quite know why but I really don't like them so I think I'd rather stay indoors with a hot chocolate thanks..

Skinny Jeans or Leggings?

If I'm indoors leggings (although I  am usually seen around the house in pyjama bottoms because who has time to change into leggings??), and if I'm outdoors skinny jeans but I hardly wear jeans any more

Boots or Uggs?

Boots!! And for even more detail, my trusty doc martens! 

Favourite thing about fall?

I like the fashion, I like watching Christmas movies (Elf, Bridget Jones, Love Actually..) and the constant supply of chocolate

Songs that really get you in the fall spirit?

I don't really have songs that get me into AUTUMN (goddamn it Americans) but as for Christmas I think 'last Christmas' is probably an all time fave

Thanks for reading, as I said in my last blog post I am going to be writing a post/doing a vlog about Harry Potter studios (and a Harry Potter marathon/themed sleepover) very soon featuring Antoinette, Isabella and Lizzie so stay tuned - I'm so excited and it's the perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit (HOGWARTS IN THE SNOW WILL BE PERFECTION)

♡