Pineapple and shamrocks

Firstly, I must tell you that shamrocks and four-leaf clovers are not the same thing. A shamrock only has three leaves and is a symbol of Ireland, whereas a four-leaf clover, as the name suggests, has four and is said to be good luck. I guess that is my little lesson for the day and one I learnt myself from my lovely Irish housemate. You might wonder how this is relevant to the topic at hand; well on Thursday we had a farewell at work for said housemate, whom I also worked with. I decided to make some shamrock cookies so I could finally use the cookie cutter and sprinkles I had purchased ages ago and because she is Irish. I have previously made sugar cookies as mentioned here. However, I did want to try a new recipe, which ended up being this one. For the frosting, as I so often do, I mixed some of this with a little bit of that before tinting it green. I find that the key frosting ingredients for me are icing sugar, butter, vanilla essence, milk and meringue powder to help it set. I usually just work with the quantities I have on hand to achieve a flavour and consistency I am happy with because experimenting when baking is really enjoyable. I used a Wilton 21 decorating tip to pipe the frosting onto the cookies.

The cookies didn't fit the Hawaiian theme we had decided on, but the pineapple upside down cake I made sure did. I was pretty nervous about making this cake because I haven't made one since high school. Although there was a massive flaw to the recipe I choose in that it didn't list the oven temperature, which I decided should be 350 degrees celsius. I baked it in an eight inch round cake tin for fifty minutes and it turned out pretty well. I think if I make it again I would like to add some more pineapple to the cake as the four slices left a bit of a gap in the middle.

I think we did a really good job at making it more of a celebration than a farewell, but either way it marked the end of our working time together.

Sunshine and shopping

Having an extra day off on the weekend is such a wonderful thing. However, having it be sunny on all three of the days off makes it pretty perfect. Today was another glorious day as evidenced by all the short and singlet wearing people I saw out and about. I took the opportunity to head downtown today to do some errands and indulge in some spontaneous retail therapy. Shopping makes me happy, but finding bargains is even better because there is no residual guilt or buyer's remorse once you get home and take a look at your bounty. I did a lot of window shopping today, lusting over various items, some just outside my means and others way out of reach. Still I picked up a few, non-essential things from two of my favourite stores - American Eagle and Forever 21. Ballet-style flats were the order of the day from American Eagle with two pairs purchased.

As you can see they are very different, but equally as cute and I got them both for a steal. Forever 21 was all about accessories as I selected some adorable, yet fun earrings at a bargain price.

I'm excited to have different colours and shapes to play with depending on my mood and my outfit. The last item to come home with me was a brightly coloured scarf. I must admit that this scarf wasn't my first choice of the day, but the one I loved was a bit too much to justify. I don't feel like I am settling as I do love the weight of the scarf and the colour combination, but I haven't given up on buying the one I did fall completely head of heels for.

Musical musings for March

March has been a memorable fun-filled month as mentioned here. It is ending on a much welcome warmer note, which is hopefully a sign of what is to come. Every great month like this needs a soundtrack and the songs that were mine in March were:

1. Sweet Nothing (feat. Florence Welch) - Calvin Harris
2. I Will Fall (feat. Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio) - Nashville Cast
3. One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks) - One Direction
4. Mirrors - Justin Timberlake
5. Storm Warning - Hunter Hayes
6. I Found You - The Wanted
7. Kiss Goodnight - Tyler Shaw
8. Blow Me (One Last Kiss) - P!nk
9. Stay (feat. Mikky Ekko) - Rihanna

As you can see a lot of these artists have already appeared in my previous musical musings, but that just means that I know when I am onto a good thing. Having said this, I am pretty sure the only new artists were P!nk and Tyler Shaw.  Some of P!nk's music has been in my iTunes library for a while, but I obviously hadn't purchased anything in some time. I am also still hoping to make her concert in October. TV shows are still a big influence when it comes to the music I purchase as evidenced by another Nashville song making it onto the list.

March's music can be found on these albums (images courtesy of iTunes)

Music and sunshine are excellent ingredients in a recipe for happiness...here is to more of both next month.