The Wifelette...Bakes!

Of late, my new vocation in life has not been law, but baking. And as such, I thought it about time to share my very favourite carrot cake recipe by Nigel Slater. It is genius and works every time. But before I introduce it, here are a few gratuitous shots of my cake baking success to date!

Recipe for carrot cake heaven as follows...

Ingredients...

Eggs - 3
Self-raising flour - 250g
Bicarbonate of soda - half a teaspoon
Baking Powder - a teaspoon
Ground cinnamon - a teaspoon
Salt - a pinch
Sunflower Oil - 200ml
Light muscovado sugar - 250g
Carrots - 150g
Juice of half a lemon
Walnuts - 150g

For the Frosting...
Mascarpone Cheese - 250g
Philadelphia cream cheese - 200g
Unrefined icing sugar - 150g
The grated zest of a medium orange
Walnut halves - a handful

Set the oven at 180 degrees. Lightly butter a cake tin and line with a disc of baking parchment.

Separate the eggs. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Beat the oil and sugar with an electric mixer until creamed, then introduce the egg yolks one by one. Grate the carrots into the mixture, then add lemon juice. Roughly chop the walnuts and add them too.

Fold the flour into the mixture using the electric whisk on slow. Beat the egg white separately until light and stiff, then fold into the mixture using a large metal spoon (a wooden one will knock the air out).

Scoop the mixture into the tin, smooth the top gently and bake for forty to forty-five minutes. Test with a skewer. The cake should be moist but not sticky. Remove from the oven and leave to settle for a good ten minutes before removing the cake from the tin.

To make the frosting, mix the mascarpone, Philadelphia cheese and icing sugar with an electric mixer. Beat till smooth and creamy (there should be no lumps). Mix in the orange zest.
When the cake is cool, cut the cake in half and smooth approximately 1/3 of the frosting. Then sandwich the halves together. Use the rest to cover the top of the cake. Finish with walnut halves. And ta-daa!

Chanel-lo!

So, what better way to start than to fess up about my most recent splurge. After having been locked away studying law for the past year, last week I treated myself to a post-examination splurge on some new skincare. But not just skincare; Chanel skincare. I had previously been a Chanel sceptic, but having read so many fantastic things about their wares on the amazing Makeup Alley, I relieved my savings account of any money and donated it to Chanel. What I received in return has thus far been fantastic.

After finally coming to terms with the fact that I have reached a point where I now need foundation, I initially indulged in Chanel's dewy, gorgeous Vitalumiere. As a bona fide bronzer gal, I also had my first foray into the world of blushers, which has been made incredibly stress free by Chanel's Tweed blush in Coral. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say I'm now a convert.

But as every girl knows, makeup can't perform miracles if you don't have the skincare to match it. So, not only did I invest in Chanel's Precision Cleansing Milk and toner, but the super-luxe Hydramax Active Moisture Cream.

I'm sure I also purchased a couple of other items, but for now that's quite enough to report on. Needless to say however, I am very happy with my splurge. I have also given my other half details of the items I didn't buy so who knows, hopefully they will make their way to me sometime soon...

Welcome to The Wifelette

Welcome to The Wifelette, home to the ramblings of a wannabe wife.

As you can see from the posts below, this is not my first dalliance with blogging. Indeed, this blog used to be known as Chez Gracie. However, whilst I loved dipping my toe into the blogosphere, I found myself trying to model my blog on other, more successful blogs. Blogs that had captured the attention of publishers and had subsequently been turned into books. Blogs that had become the darlings of editors and whose authors had gone on to become members of the full-time editorial staff. Blogs where the bloggers are invited to fashion shows. Blogs where the bloggers were invited to anything. And blogs with an audience of, well, more than just me and my other half.

And so there it began. My blogging despair turned into an idea. I decided that rather than morph myself into another blog I should really find something to be passionate about. And no, it's not weddings (although I L-O-V-E these), it's not fashion and it's certainly not beauty. No, my blog would be based on the lessons I'm learning as a wife in training.

You see, I'm on the brink of embarking upon wife-hood. But 28 years and one fiance later, I'm none the wiser about what I have to do to become this nobel creature known as a 'Wife'.

Wives are grown-ups. Wives are wise. Wives can cook. Wives are...scary. And I'm soon to become one of them. Eeeeeek!

So, rather than go it alone, I thought I would share my lessons with the blogosphere. Whilst I doubt my blog will boast the Nobel Prize for literature, it may well boast a few of the humbling lessons and triumphs learnt on the way to wife-hood. So, in my new incarnation I am the Wifelette; a girl becoming an grown-up and studying the art of Wife.

Oh...

Hello! I'm back after a good month of hard legal labour. It was incredibly painful and my brain is so sore I can't even read a non-law book now. But it's over - hurrah!
So, I thought I would start off by introducing a shift in direction. I started another blog last week based on an idea that had hatched quite a few months ago. But Blogger have changed their template and I'm just not happy with how it looks. So, I have been considering changing the name of this blog and steering it in a new direction instead. I'm still umming and ahhing about it, although if I do go ahead, all will be revealed shortly.

Another thing I just wanted to say is that even if I don't change the name of this blog, I will be changing the direction. As an ex-PR whose clients were always desperate for coverage my colleagues and I were all encourage to start writing blogs so we could provide our clients with coverage instead. Sounds desperate. And it was. Nevertheless, my view as a PR is seemingly very different to that of the lovely people in blog-land and where I have previously copied images from websites and gushed about how brill a brand or photographer may have been, I have discovered that this isn't quite what you do on the blogosphere.

So, it may sound incredibly naive, but apologies if there is anybody out there who has had a little read (unlikely!) and noticed their creative wares on here. It has certainly not been my intention to offend, but I guess where my PR mind has been trained to believe that anyone is grateful for coverage, it just doesn't work that way. Seemingly on the tinterweb what I may think of as coverage is classified as, er, 'liberating' shall we say?! So apologies chaps, and I won't be doing it again.

Finally, as it seems that only my parner and I actually read my blog, I'm not going to keep the theme of writing from a faux-commercial point of view. Instead, I'm going to write about stuff I like. Who cares if no one reads it (please read me, please read me!!), at least it will make me happy :)

So here goes, a whole new blog...