Monthly Recap August 2016 + ANNOUNCEMENT

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monthly recap august

August was a very good month for the blog! I posted pretty consistently (apart from last week) and I’ve been very happy with my content, too. Plus, I finally redid the entire recipe index, and it looks so much more slick and sophisticated now! I also think it’s a lot easier to browse this way. I didn’t read quite as much as I would’ve liked, but I’m fine with that. I had a good month, and that’s what it’s all about.

And now it’s September and my three-month vacation has come to an end – which leads me to my announcement. I started my internship at a publisher’s for school books (among other things) last week Thursday, which means I’ll be doing the whole nine to five (what a way to make a living) thing for four days a week for the next five months. I’ll also be doing a university course on the side, meaning I suspect I’ll be pretty busy. That’s why I’ve decided to temporarily scale back on the blogposts. I’m going to aim at putting out a blogpost once a week, which I think should be manageable, but we’ll see. I just don’t want to make things too hard on myself and since I get stressed easily, I figured a preemptive measure such as this would be the best thing to do. It’s a bit of a bummer that I won’t have that much time for blogging anymore, but I am actually really looking forward to this internship – it looks like it’s going to be really interesting!

Anyway, enough of that! Let’s get to the recap…

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Decadent Three-Layer Brownies

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These brownies are more commonly known as “slutty brownies” but I don’t like that name, so I went for “decadent three-layer brownies” instead. It’s still the same type of brownie, though: a layer of cookie dough covered by a layer of Oreos covered by a layer of brownie.

I know.

They’re as good as they sound. Interestingly, though, they taste far more delicious when they’re completely cooled down than when they’re still warm, which is counter-intuitive to me, but hey. You live, you learn.

Although there are quite a few steps, these brownies are definitely easy to make. I simply combined two of my other recipes and threw in some Oreos in between. They’re very dense and heavy, though, so I cut these into rather small pieces. But I’m not here to judge: you do you.

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My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry

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myhusbandswifeIt’s the perfect love story.

Lily meets Ed at a party, and on their second date, he proposes. She’s a lawyer, he’s an up-and-coming artist. They own a small but beautiful flat in London and mix with all the right people.

But Lily has a secret. Something from her past, that is soon to collide with her present. And she thinks her new husband is hiding something too…

The vows they made will soon be tested to the very limits.

“Till death do us part…”

Published: 25 August 2016

Source: ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

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Reading Goals: Fun Challenge or Added Pressure?

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Before I started blogging I had never even thought about setting myself goals when it came to reading. I read what I wanted when I wanted to read it (apart from the required reading for my university courses). But then I discovered book blogging and Goodreads, and, a little later, the Goodreads reading challenge and a whole new world opened up before me, shining shimmering splendid.

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Thoughts on Go Set a Watchman

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A while back me and my friend Emmie from Another Night of Reading decided to do a buddy read of Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee since we both wanted to read it soonish and we’d also like someone to discuss it with because of its special nature and all the controversy and stuff. We set a deadline and date to discuss it together (August 16) and started reading.

Turns out we both have lots of thoughts. They’re mostly along the same lines, but Emmie’s focus was on slightly different things than mine – her post will be up in a couple of days, and I’ll add a link to it here.

For now, let’s get on with this (slightly lengthy) post.

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Banana and Blueberry Baby Bundt Cakes

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Ah, the alliteration in this title tickles my language-loving heart. And it wasn’t even on purpose! Except for the “baby”. The original plan was “mini bundt”.

Anyway.

I’ve had a very productive weekend! I’ve been saying for months now that I want to redo the blog’s entire recipe index: I wanted to divide the index into categories and have a picture for every recipe instead of just a list of titles. And I finally did that this weekend! I’m pretty proud of how it turned out, I must say, so I’d love for you to take a look. While I was at it I also completely redid my About Me page, because when I read back what I wrote in 2013 I might have cringed a little bit.

And then there was this bake! Those of you who follow me on Twitter might remember that I bought a couple of mini bundt cake tins on sale a while ago, and I decided to use them for the first time this weekend. For the flavours I used the fruits I had lying around, namely banana, blueberry and lime. The lime isn’t in the title of this post, but it was already getting quite long, so I decided to sacrifice it. It happens. Plus, the whole “B”thing. You guys get it.

I whipped up these mini bundt cakes in no time, and apart from being freaking adorable they’re also really tasty! The glaze adds some lovely colour as well as moisture (I might have overbaked these a little) and it’s just a perfect little snack to go with a cup of tea. If you want to bake more than 6 of these you can easily double the recipe, but I’m not sure if doubling will be enough for one large bundt cake. It might be! Let me know if you try that. In any case, I hope you enjoy these!

Also, apparently this is my 300th post on the blog! How cool is that?

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The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Cycle #1)

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P1030953Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them–until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.

His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

First published: 2012

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White Chocolate Blondies with Mango and Coconut

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I spent the last couple of days at my aunt’s place for some sleepover fun. We’ve been doing this every so often since I was a child, and I’m so glad we’re still having these weekends now that I’m grown up (ha, “grown up”, that sounds weird). She’s one of my favourite people in the world and those weekends are always tons of fun. Most of the time we don’t even really do that much – we just walk through town, do some groceries, eat a lot of great food, watch a film or two and talk for hours.

This time, though, we both figured that it might be fun if we baked something together. So we started brainstorming, and I suggested we could bake blondies – white chocolate brownies. Then she said “I think mango would go really nice with that” and we also came up with the idea of adding some coconut, and voilà, a new recipe was born.

And let me tell you, these blondies turned out really good. They’re fluffy on the inside, with a subtle white chocolate and coconut taste and bursts of mango, and the crust is perfectly crisp as well. Funnily enough the taste of coconut only really comes through when the blondies have cooled down completely. Even then, though, it’s still quite subtle, so if you want more of a coconutty taste, I think adding 20 or 30 grams more dessicated coconut would do the trick.

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My (Spoiler Free) Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

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Okay, so… Where do I even start?!

I really, really loved Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. And I know that many people are on the fence about it and some people are disappointed or don’t like it at all, but I’m not one of those people and in this (spoiler free!) post I am going to attempt to tell you why.

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Monthly Recap – July 2016

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monthly recap july

July was a fun month! My three month vacation is still going strong and I’m loving every minute of it. I spent a few days at one of my friends’ parents’ house with a couple of other friends and just got back from a short holiday to Belgium with my father yesterday. We went to see David Gilmour (from Pink Floyd) live which was amazing. Wish You Were Here is in my top 3 favourite songs of all time and when he started playing the intro I nearly cried. So, yeah – it was good!

I also did loads of reading and participated in BookTube-A-Thon which was so much fun and really productive too: I finished 5 books – two of which I’d been “reading” for months. The bookstagram challenges they did also gave me a good way to get back into Instagram and I posted a few pictures I’m really happy with.

So, what else happened this month? I mostly hung out with friends, read, and did some plotting and planning for the fantasy story I want to write. It was just a really good month overall with lots of happy memories. 

And then today, the 31st of July, the birthdays of J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child came out. I wasn’t planning on buying it right away at all, because, honestly, I wasn’t really feeling it, but then I saw all the hype on Twitter and Instagram and I just got so excited!

I picked up a copy as soon as the bookstore opened at 12 and I’ve just finished reading Part 1 and guys – guys – IT’S SO GOOD. It has waaay exceeded my expectations and I’m going to fangirl A LOT (my review will probably come on Thursday) but first it’s time for this recap, because it was a pretty good month for the blog, too!

Let’s go!

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