Autumn Essentials

Autumn excites me so much, with Halloween, bonfire night and the run up to Christmas there's so much to do and I just love it, and as the weather gets colder and more rainy I actually have an excuse to stay in, curled up on the sofa all day. But, when you do have to face the outdoors there are a few things that are much needed to motivate me to leave the house.

Obviously a scarf is just a necessity round this time of the year, I got this one from Primark last year and I still love it this year so I've pulled it back out of hiding and it will hopefully keep me from freezing to death.

Dark lipsticks are basically made for Autumn, and I really love the Topshop Beguiled one and, everyone's favorite, Kate Moss 107. Neither of these were overly expensive and they make me feel very autumny and cosy so they're always on side to help me look a little bit more presentable.

During Autumn and Winter my hands feel really dry and I really hate dry hands, so I take a little hand cream round everywhere with me to make sure that my hands are always soft and hydrated. This one is a travel sized soap and glory one and it smells really clean and soaks in quite quickly, but it's the perfect size to carry around.

I have got to admit, during the colder months the lighter colours in my naked 3 pallete are rarely touched, but I love the darker colours for this time of the year and they go really well with a dark lip too. Although 50% of the time doing eye shadow takes up too much time and I do tend to skip it.

Honestly...can someone tell me why I've never tried a pumpkin spice latte before last week? I think I'm in love with them, they basically taste like a mix between autumn and winter and if someone gave me a gallon of it, i'd happily drink it until I was sick...what a lovely image.

What are your autumn essentials?

dais xx

Autumn Gingerbread Cinnamon Cupcakes

Autumn is probably my favorite season out of them all. I love sitting down with a hot chocolate and a soft blanket and watching YouTube, Netflix or my favorite DVD and it being acceptable to do so, without the constant feeling of guilt that I should be out with friends or enjoying the 'nice' weather. With the days getting colder and shorter (thank god) i feel like this is the perfect time to get back into baking, which sort of took a back seat for me over the last few months- but I found this recipe which produces the perfect autumn/winter cupcakes..you can thank me later.

Gingerbread Cinnamon Cupcakes

Method:
Step 1- Preheat the oven to 180C and place 12 cases into a cupcake/muffin tin.
Step 2- Cream together the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Step 3- mix the spices together with the self raising flour in a separate bowl
Step 4- Crack the 3 eggs into a cup and whisk them a little bit until they're combined.
Step 5- Add a little bit of the egg then mix, then a little bit of the flour and mix. Keep alternating between the two until you've used all the eggs and flour (I would suggest stopping a few times and folding in the flour round the sides of the bowl)
Step 6- Stir in the milk
Step 7- Plop about a tablespoon and a half of the mixture into each cupcake case and put them in the oven for about 17-20 minutes (17 was plenty for me or they would have burnt)

While they're cooking in the oven, make the toffee and the buttercream.
BUT to me the toffee was kind of an unnecessary step and if you're looking to cut cleaning up time I would skip this bit. I didn't end up using the toffee on top, and the toffee I did put in the buttercream, you couldn't really taste.
Step 8- Melt 50g of the 200g of butter in a pan with the sugar until it's turned into a toffee sauce and then add a little bit of milk, you can let this cool because it melts again so easily.
Step 9- Whisk the remaining 150g of butter until it's smooth
Step 10- Add the icing sugar and 3/4 of the toffee sauce (if you're using it) then put it in the fridge for a little bit while your cakes cool down
The amount of buttercream the recipe says doesn't make enough for all of the cakes and I doubled it
Step 11- When your cakes are cool *insert sunglasses emoji* stuff the buttercream into a piping bag and pipe on little swirls of icing.
Step 12- Decorate with anything you want! I used little sparkly gingerbread sprinkle and gingerbread toppers from sainsburys, but you can use anything really! Then that's it, you're done.

If you make these please make sure to leave me a comment below telling me what you think!
(and good luck trying not to eat every single one in one sitting...it's tough)

dais xx