A Touch of Manchester~

'You know I think Manchester has affected me. I was on the tube today and someone sneezed and I had the most inexplicable urge to say "Bless you"!'

Macaroon Time!

Summer = Macaroons

...Right?

Shortly before finishing exams, my friend, Tasha, decided that another baking day was in order. And I, the keen procrastinator that I am, naturally jumped on this opportunity to run away from revision!

The only problem was that as two of my housemates had already moved out of our house, all the baking equipment had disappeared. Which meant no scales, no whisks, no measuring jugs or anything else you might need to, y'know, bake with!

(Tea party set up!)

So what did we do? We made macaroons Luckily, Tasha had some cute measuring cups which she had brought alone and, after some time perusing Google, found that we could improvise a whisk from two forks. Hard work, yes, but not impossible!

Whilst Tasha did most of the heard work (including all the whisking!), I used my time productively to make the filling. Although churning butter did give my upper arms a nice work out,  it was fairly quick and easy to do given the summer heat. I also used this as an opportunity to experiment with some different flavours and in the end we had chocolate, rose water and vanilla fillings to choose from!

The all we had to do was wait for the macaroons to bake!

And as the weather outside was simply astounding, I thought I would make the most of the opportunity to take photos of the wonderful clothes that Tasha was wearing and just enjoy the sunshine! (Because as you can probably tell, I am very strongly of the opinion that one cannot have too many photos!)

(roar...!)

After this, we made our way back quickly into the kitchen just in time to pull out these lovely babies from the oven!

Unfortunately, as we did not have any food colouring, the macaroons were slightly less exciting than they appeared in the shops (and on instagram) however they still tasted pretty darn amazing! :D

(Well, my house mates and I enjoyed them at least ;) )

Overall, my favourite filling was definitely the vanilla, however I feel that this was due to the fact that the vanilla essence was the strongest and therefore stood out the most! It was all delicious though!

Anyway, thank you very much for reading this blog, hope you enjoyed it!

Till next time~

xxx

The Teacup Kitchens Adventure

That time my friend and I tried to find a cafe. And failed miserably. 

The Bonbon Chocolate Boutique was a cafe that I stumbled upon roughly this time last year whilst I was (as usualy) getting lost in the Northern Quarter section of Manchester. On that day, I vowed that I would go back to eat there. 

And then I forgot about it. 

So it wasn't until recently when my friend recommended a strange but beautiful chocolate cafe she has found on Northern Quarter that my interest was rekindled. She gave me a raving review of how beautiful the atmosphere was and great the chocolate tasted, describing the experience in such detail that I was absolutely itching for an excuse to go again myself. 

And that was when my friend called to arrange a catch up. I quickly used this opportunity to suggest the Bonbon Chocolate Boutique, hoping that I would finally get the opportunity to visit this mysterious and somehow all encompassing cafe. 

Well, dear reader, as I am sure you have noticed, this post is not entitled 'the Chocolate Bonbon Cafe' however instead is called 'the Teacup Kitchen'. So it is no stretch of the imagination to predict that we did not, in the end, venture to the magical bonbon cafe.

We did try to find it, googling addresses and post codes, trying to match up the scenery with the one photo I took last year but to no avail. Google took us to one place, google maps suggested somewhere else and their website let us to yet a third location. And after an hour of wondering, we had seen many cafés, but no sign of the Chocolate Bonbon. 

(Outside the teacup kitchen)

Giving up with a heavy heart, we went into the nesrest cafe we could see, and that was when we stumbled into 'The Teacup Kitchen'. 

And this is the point where our luck changed. For the Teacup Kitchen is no mere cafe. It is the mother of all cafe's. With a huge variety of teas, coffees and other assorted hot drinks, the presentation of this coffee house in particularly is wonderful. 

With quirky menus which include a small pull out menu of specials to the little timers that come with most herbal teas, the Teacup Kitchen encompasses all the quirkiness that the Northern Quarter has to offer, along with all the pomp that comes with getting afternoon tea in the first place.

After having spent a good half hour perusing the selection on offer, I eventually decided on the Red Velvet cake, along with Chai Tea. 

One of the better decisions I have made in my life. 

(Don't forget the pinkie!)

The Chai Tea was served with a selection of frothy milk, honey and sugar, ready for you to choose and included free refills of the tea. As for the cake... Well at £4, I was expecting to get a lot, but even my expectations here were more than exceeded! 

It.was.humungous. 

I have really never been served a cake that big from a cafe in my life. Well worth the money, it arrived on a nice patterned plate, with a dainty fork (which had a sharp(ish) edge so that it doubled up as a knife!!!) and a whole lot of deliciousness. 

I was simply amazed at the service and quality of everything there was to offer in this cafe, and I have not been able to shut up about it since. Although slightly expensive, the Teacup Kitchens is well worth a visit for anyone who loves tea and/or cake, for the sheer experience alone more than pays for itself. The atmosphere is also welcoming and friendly, which is again something I really appreciate about smaller cafe shops. 

And although I was unable to find the glorious Bonbon Chocolate Boutique, I was not in the least bit disappointed with my latest find. 

Although seeing this sign which refences the BonBon cafe has confirmed to me it's existence and someday, I shall find it again. ;) 

And that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading and if you ever find yourself parched for some tea whilst in the Northern Quarter, definitely check out the Teacup Kitchen! It will be well worth the visit :) 

Until next time! 

Xxx

Travel Diaries: Manchester!! (Aka my sister's shopping diary...)

That time my sister came to visit :) 

So, after weeks and weeks of my pestering my lovely sister to come and visit, she finally relented and enjoyed the first week of her Easter holidays for a shopping/touristy/revision break in sunny sunny Manchester! Needless to say, revision didn't really get done... But we did shop! A lot. 

Although this isn't really a travel diary as I have lived in Manchester for about 2 years, I figured this is probably the first time I ever really got to experience it as a tourist, although due to the weather, we didn't really leave the city centre... 

So without much ado, here is the (shopping...) tour of Manchester. 

First day: 

So as she arrived at some point in the afternoon, we spent most of the day just planning the rest of our trip and watching 'My Mad Fat Diary' (which is actually surprisingly good!!). However I was able to show her my favourite milkshake places in Manchester, Moonlight, just on the Curry Mile

They do an absolutely amazing array of different flavoured milkshakes, from your favourite chocolate bar milkshakes to fruit! That night we both went for my favourite 'Ferraro Roche milkshake', however I always recommend honeycomb too!

Day Two:

I firstly showed my sister what the AMC cinema in Deasgate had to offer, which is pretty much just an arcade (other than the cinema), but seeing as it had my favourite photobooth of all time there, 'FotoFun', I fel that it had to be included in the tour!

(She found the minions!)

On the way toward our main activity of the day, shopping, we stopped past the brilliant 'Almost Famous' restaurant, which is my favourite burger place of all time (- I mean, what even IS baconnaise??) before grabbing a quick snack at the super duper cure 'Bake Station' cafe! As Londers, we could not resist the obviou reference to our beloved London Underground after all!

As this was the first day we hit town, and by that I mean my bank account, I decided spend the day with my fashion-forward sister perusing what Picadilly Gardens had to offer us, including, of course, the huuuuuuuge Primark (which she loved) before hitting up the Arndale :)

(The Picadilly Eye)

(She discovered her new favourite rack in Primark!)

We then spend some time relaxing around the Arndale before we were to meet up with my housemates for dinner!

(We so cool!)

(Somewhat less cool....)

For dinner, we met up with the boys at the magnificent 'Tops' restaurant, Portland Street, for an all-you-can-eat (within 90 minutes) Chinese buffet! I must say, despite not usually being a fan of buffets, at the brilliant pricing and amazing quality of food, Tops is definitely an exception to that rule!

By the end, I was so stufed, I didn't even have room for desert!!!

Finally, to help walk off the on-coming food baby I was due, my sister and I dragged the boys out to revisit 'Foto-Fun' before walking home.

(Four people may have been too many for the tiny photobooth....)

Day Three:

We were originally supposed to go ice skating, but due to my our lack of waking up on time ability, we had missed the opportune time to go to Altrincham. So instead? We went shopping. Again.

But first, I had promised our parents we would do some revision so...

So back to Picadilly we headed. This time however, I was determined to take my thriftly little sister to somewhere I knew she would truly appreciate. The Northern Quarter. As vintage shops in London make a huge fortune selling second hand clothing for unreasonably high pricing, I was certain she would relish the range and quality of stuff available in Northern Quarter, without having to break her bank account! First stop? Affleck's Palace of course!

We then stopped by Primark again to buy some cute slipper-socks my sister had been craving since the day before. At only £1, they were a total steal!

We then settled ourselves at the local Starbucks to enjoy some tea (or a Chai Tea Latte for my sister) before heading out to do some actual sight seeing!

The sight seeing tour on the way back was comprised of visiting China Town, checking out the local Chinese supermarket and bakeries before looking round some of the nice churches on Oxford Road!

(Packing up for home)

Day Four:

As we didn't have much time before my sister had to get on the train back, the last day was spent in one of my favourite cafe's in Manchester, The Anchor, which is conveniently also my local cafe! Run by Christians, the atmosphere is very chillaxed, with friendly and helpful staff who happen to make the best brownies I have ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot of brownies. How this little cafe of dreams hasn't yet made it into my blog I'm not entirely sure as I seem to spend most of my life (and my money...) in there, however I am certain you'll see it many more times in the future. It truly is one of my favourite coffee shops!

(These brownies!!)

Our last act in Manchester was to play at catching the beautiful blossoms whilst we waited for that fateful Magic Bus to sweet my sister home sweet home again.

In all, the week was a huge success, and I believe my sister really enjoyed it. Although there are still a million and one things we didn't get to do, like use the metro to get over to the suburbss, visit the kooky cafe's in Northern Quarter, or see any of the millions of art galleries, theatres or music groups around, I feel that we covered a lot of the basics- and given our budged, I think I managed to help my sister get a better insight into what Manchester, this truly wonderful city, has to offer. Hopefully you will agree, and maybe even check out some of the places I recommended? 

That's all for this post so goodbye for now~

xxx