Series: Monday Musings

After a strenuous couple of weeks I finally had the weekend I've been craving. 

Staying in. Movies. Pizza. Make Up tutorials. Spending time with my loved ones. Tumbling. Reading. And everything in between. These snaps depict my ideal weekend marvellously.

Breaking Bad marathon! 

Throwing in some Eye candy for good measure

Advice from a Tree

Five Things

The cutest bear dog on Oxford street

Delicious meringue cake

My baby niece's new photographs

His n Hers Tea Sets

Mr. Brainwash Graffiti in Holborn

Top Banana

Ladies and Gentleman, I present you with a delicious recipe to the ol' classic Banana Bread.

This is an easy little loaf cake you can whip up in five minutes, pop in the oven and tuck into with a steaming pot of aromatic ceylon tea (or any other tea for that matter!)

All you need is:

4 ripe bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (use Demerara sugar for a slightly healthier alternative)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
...and your best Chef's apron

(N.B. No need for a mixer for this recipe)

Begin by preheating your oven to 175ºC. 

Grab a large mixing bowl, with a wooden spoon, start by combining your butter with the mashed bananas. Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla, then sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and stir in. Add the flour last. 

If you are a fan of nuts, fold in some chopped walnuts at this point. 

Finally pour the mixture into a buttered loaf pan. Bake for one hour.

And hey presto, you're just in time for afternoon tea!

Banana Bread

Homemade Croissants

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” - Virginia Woolf


Personally, I always preferred baking to cooking ever since I was little. It all began when I joined cookery club in Primary school and we would bake all sorts of sweet little treats every week, only to take them home to gobble down in a matter of minutes. That's not to say I have baking skills to rival Nigella Lawson but I do get a thrill out of making something delicious from scratch. 

Now since I've been in Baku-my hometown, for summer holidays, I've been having cravings for authentic French croissants. 

Regrettably I still haven't managed to find a decent viennoiserie to satisfy my doughy desire. After some trial and error, and a disastrous first attempt that ended up with dough as tough as nails, I found this gem of a recipe (that even includes supportive youtube tutorials). (N.B. A tip before you eagerly begin making your treats - the amount of work you actually need to do isn't too long, but you need to make these over at least two days due to the amount of chilling time the dough needs, so plan in advance!)

Ms. Sandra's recipe proved to be a success and I ended up making a dozen buttery, flaky croissants.

The recipe is for plain pastries but I added some ham & cheese, and grated some chocolate right before rolling them into shape. Enjoy!

Homemade pastries

UPDATE: Baku now has a very authentic viennoiserie, everything in store is baked by a French chef and trust me when I say it is absoluteley delicious, Bakuvians and tourists, if you don't believe me, you can find them here.